Chapter 8

CHIMOIO ATTACK – RHODESIAN GENOCIDE

Introduction

Ours was a long and arduous struggle, punctuated by heroic sacrifices as well as heart rending calamities. Chimoio ZANLA Headquarters was the setting for one such calamity. Out of the gloom and doom unleashed on 23 November 1977, a new purposefulness and determination was born that propelled our revolutionary armed struggle to its intended conclusion – independence for Zimbabwe in 1980.

What follows in this chapter is a comprehensive exposé of the genocidal tendencies of the callous colonial regime that we fought and vanquished.

Situated about 85 kilometres from the border with Zimbabwe, Chimoio town is in central Mozambique and is the capital of Manica province. During the era of Portuguese colonial rule that ended in 1975, Chimoio was known as Vila Pery. The town is located along the main rail and road linking Beira, a strategic port city and capital of the neighbouring province of Sofala, to Mutare, capital of the eastern Manicaland province of Zimbabwe.

The name ‘Chimoio’, rather than the town itself, has more significance to the people of Zimbabwe and is immortalised in the annals of the country’s history. Its significance stems from a farm that was abandoned by its Portuguese owner during the height of the liberation struggle against Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique, and donated by the FRELIMO led government to ZANU to be used as the operational headquarters of its military wing, the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA). The farm thus became the nerve centre of all ZANLA operations and hereafter the ZANLA Headquarters shall be referred to just as ‘Chimoio’.

As described in the chapter on ‘Guerrilla Training’, I first came to Chimoio in the first half of 1976 after completing my basic training at Tembwe. Apart from brief periods of deployment to operational areas in Zimbabwe, most of my time between 1976 and 1978 was spent at Chimoio where I was an instructor.

Prelude to attack

The voice was distant and barely audible. Either I was dreaming or imagining it. Throughout the night I had been having strange dreams. Each time I woke up, I could not tell what the dream was about. This had happened to me on many occasions in the past. I would dream, but on waking up, forget what the dream was all about. Long after I woke up, or days later, something would happen that would trigger a vivid recollection of what I had dreamed of and the relevance of the dream to the unfolding events. Did someone tell me that a dream lasts only a fraction of a second? How is it, then, that I had been dreaming the whole night?

“Comrade Dragon, your water is getting cold. Are you going to take a bath now or a little later?”

The voice was now nearer and clearer, maybe coming from just outside the door to my hut. I was irritated that whoever was speaking was disturbing my thought process. I decided I could no longer tolerate these persistent interruptions and called out to the faceless character outside my hut to leave me alone.

That’s when I was woken up by my two batmen, who were shaking me in near panic. “Comrade Dragon, Comrade Dragon, please wake up. Are you feeling alright?” cried Kelvin.

Supported by my left elbow I raised my upper body, rubbed my eyes with my right hand and threw off the blanket. Confused and blinking rather stupidly, I stared at the two men. I knew something was wrong for them to wake me up in this way.

“Comrade Dragon, are you sure you are okay?” Donaldson, my other batman asked again.

“Of course I am okay. Why?” I was a little irritated.

I became aware that I was sweating and my body was trembling. “What has happened?” Now there was urgency in my voice as I demanded an explanation while trying to control my panicking voice.

“You have been screaming at the top of your voice and we came rushing, thinking that something had happened to you”, Kelvin responded.

I heaved a sigh of relief and reassured them. “Thank God, nothing has happened to me. Maybe it was just a bad dream.”

Every officer of my rank was entitled to two batmen. For male officers, these would be young men between 14 and 20 years of age, and in the case of female officers, it would be girls of similar age. The role of a batman was to cater for all aspects of an officer’s welfare. These would include tidying the hut, taking care of the laundry, providing water to bathe, arranging food for the officer, keeping the officer’s personal weapons clean and with sufficient ammunition, accompanying the officer wherever he went, and anticipating and satisfying his/her needs.

Batmen were handpicked by the officer under whom they served and usually camaraderie developed between them. I enjoyed such a relationship with my batmen. They understood perfectly well my temperament, my likes and dislikes and the extent to which they could share jokes with me. To the rank and file, batmen had become a privileged class. They were excused from the daily chores other comrades undertook, such as constructing and renovating barracks, going to collect firewood kilometres away from their base as early as 4 am, digging latrines and keeping them tidy, taking turns to cook food for large numbers, and carrying out guard duties. Thus, batmen assumed something of the privileges of their respective officers.

I was now fully awake. I took my watch from the bedside table and checked the time. It was 6.30 am and I still had time, at least an hour, to bath and dress before a twenty minute walk to my duty station at the National Stores. I put my watch back on the bedside table, but for some reason decided to check the time again. As before, I reached out and took my watch. Yes, it was 6.30 am, but something caught my attention as I was about to put away my watch. The ‘second’ hand was not moving.

“Kelvin,” I called to one of my batmen, “can you confirm what time it is?”

He looked at his watch and responded, “7.25 Comrade Dragon.”

‘Oh my God’, I moaned to myself. ‘I am already late’.

The date was 23 November 1977. It was a serene day and clouds covered the sky. In exactly 10 minutes I had brushed my teeth, washed my face and dressed in my camouflage uniform. If I had decided to take a full bath I would not have made up for the lost time. By 7.42 am I was out of my hut and on my way to the National Stores with Kelvin by my side. But somehow I felt naked, as if a vital part of my dressing was missing. Then I remembered.

“Kelvin, I have forgotten to take my rifle. You should have reminded me,” I rebuked him.

“I could have reminded you Comrade Dragon, but remember that yesterday you left your rifle at Takawira 2,” he responded.

Before being appointed the Acting Director of Politics for ZANLA two months ago, I had been a military instructor at Takawira Training Camp. I knew all the instructors at this camp and among them I had some close friends. Occasionally I visited the camp to spend some time with my friends. The latest visit was the previous day. At 5 pm, after completing my day’s assignment, I told Kelvin that we were going to Takawira Base 2 first before going to our own camp – the Headquarters base (HQ for short).

As we were leaving the National Stores, most of the comrades who lived within the National Stores Base had assembled at the parade ground and were singing revolutionary songs (Chimurenga songs, as we popularly referred to them). Daniel, a young man aged between 13 and 15 years was leading the singing. He, together with another young man of his age known as Chikepe, had become revolutionary icons within ZANLA for their talented singing of Chimurenga songs and their unparalleled abilities to motivate others, young and old alike.

As Kelvin and I were going past the parade ground, Daniel had started singing a song and the parade began responding to his tune, when he abruptly stopped the singing and with an authoritative voice demanded, “Comrades, are you tired of the struggle? Why do you sing without vigour?”

When he started singing the same tune again, there was a transformation in the spirited way the parade responded. I thought to myself, ‘This young man shall doubtlessly grow to be a powerful and inspiring leader’. But I was wrong.

We arrived at Takawira Base 2 at 6.15 pm. Training classes had ended just over an hour before our arrival and most instructors had gone to their huts. Edward Pedzisai was one of my best friends. He was an instructor specialising in sub-machineguns. I went straight to his hut and found him in the process of removing his shoes so that he could rest on his bed. We spent twenty minutes together, talking and laughing. Finally, it was time to leave before it got dark. I promised to visit him again in the next four to six days.

As I stepped out of his hut, Edward called to me, “Dragon, can you lend me your AK-47 for a few days please. We are short of sub-machineguns for our lessons. When you come back in about four days, you can collect it.” As mentioned previously, in our guerrilla parlance we used the term ‘sub-machine gun’ quite loosely to identify a variety of weapons, including the AK-47 assault rifle. These things that had happened the previous day now flashed back into my memory as Kelvin and I made our way to the National Stores.

The National Stores, for ZANLA forces, was the equivalent of a national food distribution centre. All our bases in Mozambique were supplied and replenished from there. The base had a huge warehouse with a capacity to store food enough to feed all our forces in Mozambique for at least one year, if filled to capacity. To my knowledge, it had never been full. I knew that it had been empty for most of the past year, with less than ten percent of its capacity filled at any given time. In that period we probably had more deaths caused by hunger than by enemy fire.

This year the picture had changed for the better. Already the warehouse was three quarters full and still large trucks were delivering fresh supplies. The logistics department had worked hard and deserved accolades. Most of the foodstuff was donated by organizations based in Europe and the USA.

Whenever I saw cartons of foodstuffs with the bold labels ‘MADE IN USA’ or ‘PRODUCT OF THE UNITED KINGDOM’ or ‘JAPANESE PRODUCTS’ I never ceased to wonder how these great nations that were openly hostile to our struggle could be the providers of the means of sustenance for that struggle. The explanation I always got was that the foodstuffs and items of clothing were donations from progressive organisations in those capitalist countries. This was a reasonable explanation, but it begged the question, ‘could these organisations or individuals donate such huge quantities of undisguised supplies to a so-called terrorist organisation without the tacit knowledge or approval of their governments?’ That they clearly did was yet another bizarre example of the weaknesses of the capitalist system. Kelvin and I arrived at the National Stores at 8.10 am. I shared some jokes with the six comrades who were off-loading stores from a 10-tonne truck into the warehouse as I went by, leaving them in fits of laughter. I hastened on to an adjacent building, ten metres away, to commence my day’s assignment. The sky was overcast, raising hopes that the usual hot and humid conditions under which we worked in our tiny operations room would be moderated. Today there appeared to be a serene quality to the atmosphere. Like a calm before the storm.

Kelvin would always accompany me into the room, place my briefcase on the table, and then excuse himself. Once outside the room he would stay within earshot, in case I needed to send him on an errand. During lunch he would come to check that I had sufficient food and there were no additional requirements. After work in the evenings Kelvin would be by my side as we went back to our base, or wherever I chose to go. The ever-cheerful Kelvin was like my own child.

This day, because I was a little late, I told Kelvin there was no need to come into my office. He handed me my briefcase at the entrance to the room and politely asked if I would allow him to go to the National Armoury to draw a rifle for me while my own was at Takawira 2 Training Camp. He assured me it would not take him more than one-and-a-half hours to go there and back.

Blessed are those parents who have children so faithful, so loyal, and as caring as Kelvin was to me. I told him to hurry and quipped, “Don’t be long; I won’t know what to do without you!”

That was the last time I saw Kelvin alive.

Attack – Day 1

As I entered the room, all the members of my team were seated and in the middle of eating their breakfast, at the same time listening to the news from the Rhodesia Broadcasting Corporation. Listening to the enemy’s broadcasts was an essential part of a commissar’s job in order to know the propaganda the enemy used and to devise effective counters to it. The team comprised the commanders of the National Stores Base from which we were now operating; Comrades Mabhunu Muchapera and Batai Gidi, political commissars from Tembwe Training Camp in Tete province of Mozambique; Comrades Tererai Zanu and Tendai Midzimu, political commissars from Takawira Base 1 and Takawira Base 2 respectively; Comrades Ridzai Bazooka, Chenjerai Magorira, Rugare Tangenhamo, Captain Devil, Shadreck Shumba, and Fadzai Magamba, all sector commissars withdrawn from operational areas all around Rhodesia in order to participate in the programme we were engaged in.

The room we occupied and from which, for the last two weeks, we were redrawing our political strategies in light of the fast changing political landscape in Rhodesia, had become our operational HQ. I estimated it would take us an additional eight to ten weeks to complete the revision and, where necessary, re-writing of our political lessons.

When Comrade Tongogara, the Chief of Defence of the ZANLA forces, had announced my appointment as the Acting Director of Politics two months earlier, I had formulated and won approval of my plans to considerably revamp the political department, both in terms of its organisational structure and the quality and relevance of its orientation. What we were engaged in right now was laying a foundation for the realisation of my vision. It was indeed a mammoth task, critical to the effective prosecution and ultimate success of the revolutionary struggle. I had accepted the challenge and realised that my credibility and political fortunes depended on its successful implementation. This room, I believed, had much relevance to the future of our Party and struggle, as well as to my own.

As the architect of the new vision, every member of the team looked upon me to chart the course we were to follow. For the first time since we started our programme, I had been the last to arrive. To the team, this was rather unusual because I was always the first to arrive and was always emphasising the need for being punctual. While there was obvious relief on their faces that I had finally arrived, the fifteen minute delay was not very significant because on each day, the first thirty minutes were devoted to eating breakfast, listening to the enemy broadcasts and engaging in some idle chat. I quickly took my breakfast in order not to hold back those who had arrived much earlier.

I was about to announce the start of our day’s work when we heard a loud noise. It sounded like a huge aircraft was over-flying our position at a low altitude. I suggested to the team that we go outside and investigate the source of the noise. The pitch of my voice made my suggestion sound like an order and the team responded accordingly. In a few seconds, we were standing outside, eyes turned upwards, searching the sky.

Flying above the clouds and not visible, the plane, or what we believed to be an airplane, flew over our position. Within a minute the sound had faded into the distance and I ordered the team back into our room for business.

As we trooped back into our room we were talking about this mysterious plane and the noise it made. A few of our members had settled into their seats and the rest were pulling out their chairs in order to sit when we heard the sound of the plane again. In everyone’s mind it was peculiar that the plane that had flown over our position less than three minutes ago should be returning, and so soon too.

No order was given and none was necessary as the team, sensing that something was amiss, dashed outside to re-investigate. Whereas previously we had noted only the receding sound of an airplane, we were now horrified to see bombs dropping from the sky and the big noisy plane that flew past first camouflaged the sound of the many more attacking planes following behind.

That’s when I remembered the dream*, more vividly than when I was dreaming it. I knew then that Kelvin was dead, and needed no further confirmation. Why didn’t I recall the dream when I woke up this morning? Maybe I could have sent Kelvin far away to safety. Or, I would not have allowed him to go to the National Armoury. He would be by my side right now. Just as we had been when he was alive! A sense of betrayal engulfed me for failing the ever faithful Kelvin in his hour of greatest need.

I remained rooted to the spot where we had searched the skies for the strange noise. But other members of the team had melted away. I stood alone, as if in a trance, convinced that if Kelvin were alive he would be by my side.

A bomb hit the ground five metres away from where I was standing, but failed to detonate. Had it exploded I would have been history. What it succeeded in doing, however, was to break the trance that had immobilised me. I was convinced that even in death Kelvin had intervened to save my life.

My eyes travelled some hundred metres away, before I started to move, and I saw two members of my team in flight; Comrade Ridzai Bazooka was leading with the Base Commander hot on his heels.

Thoughts tumbled through my mind. ‘Who are they fleeing from? The enemy is not on the ground but in the air and highly mobile and capable of going in any direction.’ As if to justify my logic and as I watched, the two comrades ran into the path of a falling bomb. The bomb exploded. Even before its debris landed on the ground, my two comrades had fallen. I raced towards them, determined to attempt to save their lives if they were not already dead.

When our team had its first meeting two weeks ago, we had spent our first few hours together introducing ourselves. Comrade Ridzai Bazooka, who had just come from the home front, took a good thirty minutes describing his battlefield exploits. His was the most fascinating self-introduction. He held the team spellbound as he described how he got out of enemy ambushes on several occasions, courageously commanded his platoon in the face of an enemy’s combined air and ground attack, freed two of his comrades who had been captured by the enemy in a most daring raid on an enemy camp, and many other heroic deeds. A fighter of remarkable courage and outstanding achievements indeed!

I was about five metres away from my comrades when I saw what the bomb had done to them. Comrade Ridzai Bazooka lay with his face buried in the ground, as if ashamed that the real truth about his battlefield exploits was about to be revealed. His head was pinned to the ground by a metal spike that entered from the back of his head. It must have been part of the debris that landed after he had fallen. One did not need to be a doctor to know that he was dead. The Base Commander, with his body turned upwards, was gasping for air as I knelt down and took his hand.

He had a large gash on the left side of his chest that was very deep, and I believed his heart, lungs and kidneys were damaged. I knew there was nothing I could do to save him. Fear and panic distorted his face – his eyes were popping out and his facial muscles were contorting. I doubted that he recognised me. And then, it seemed, he had given up the struggle to live. His face began to relax and his eyes looked up blankly. His hand closed on mine as if he wanted me to accompany him on the journey he had begun to another world. I extricated myself from his grip. The fear and panic I had seen on his face left the lifeless body and sought a new home – in me!

I was gripped with the same sensations and I ran. The logic that there was no enemy on the ground made no sense anymore. I wanted to flee, in any direction, to anywhere.

I became conscious of heavy, sustained fire aimed at the enemy planes. Comrades were offering resistance, and yet here was their commander and trainer, consumed with fear and panic. The thought had a sobering effect and I got control of myself. But only for a moment as a new panic overtook me – I do not have a gun!

By now I was about thirty metres away from my two dead comrades, and I suddenly made a u-turn and started running back to them, or what was left of them. ‘I must get a gun!’ The more I repeated these words to myself, the more urgent the need became, and the faster I ran.

Experience shows that at least eighty percent of those with the responsibility to prepare or to keep stocks of food for others – be they chefs in hotels or restaurants, cooks in any organisation, or private homes – develop large stomachs, generally bigger than those of their customers or bosses. The Base Commander belonged to this group. Even last year when comrades were dying from starvation, his gut remained very large. If you had seen him without clothes you could have mistaken his huge, black and shiny belly for that of a nine-month pregnant woman, until you looked at his bearded male face. No wonder that in flight he had trailed the nimble Comrade Ridzai Bazooka – the Base Commander’s skinny legs found his large belly too heavy to carry.

I reached the bodies and wasted no time in recovering an AK-47 that the Base Commander had carried and was now laying half a metre from his body. A special magazine with a capacity for forty bullets was fitted into the gun. Tied on either side of this magazine with strips of elastic cut from old tyre tubes were two regular spare magazines (each with a capacity of 30 bullets). You could fit any of the spare magazines without having to separate them.

The safety catch had not been released, evidence that the gun was not being fired when the Base Commander fell victim to the enemy bomb. This meant that I had a hundred bullets – far below what I needed for the long battle I expected to lie ahead. I attempted to remove the webbing belt strapped across the Base Commander’s chest and containing spare ammunition. But I could not roll him over to free the belt from under his body as he was just too heavy. My attention then shifted to Comrade Ridzai Bazooka’s body. With little effort I was able to release his webbing belt, containing ten standard magazines, and strap it around my own chest. Armed with an AK-47 and the spare ammunition belt I was now dressed and ready for battle.

For the first time since the attack began, I seriously began reviewing the battlefield scenario, determined that I would offer whatever resistance I possibly could. So far, it seemed, the enemy was using only fixed wing aircraft to bombard both moving and pre-determined fixed targets. As for moving targets, I supposed that any groups of five and above would attract the immediate attention of the enemy. So far my movements had been solitary and, although I had not been concentrating on the enemy’s modus operandi, it seemed I had not presented an attractive target. I decided that I should return to the National Stores and find out if any more of my team members had survived.

I was almost thirty metres away from my dead comrades when I heard a bomb explode behind me. As I quickly turned to investigate I did not feel any pain as a fragment from the bomb lodged itself in my right thigh. The corpses of my two comrades had been bombed again into unrecognisable remains. I was confused as to why the enemy should want to bomb dead bodies; then it dawned on me that the target had probably been me. When I had been struggling to retrieve a gun and ammunition, I presented a stationary target that, in the absence of a larger target, was a welcome alternative to a pilot who had to dispose of his payload before going back to base.

The team I had so meticulously assembled and in whose abilities I had so much confidence was being dissolved – dissolution through decimation. It was like watching a house one had painstakingly built succumbing to the powerful force of an earthquake.

As I continued my ‘backward advance’* to the National Stores, I scanned the battlefield. The whole of Chimoio, all the fourteen bases, had been turned into one big battlefield. Dotted all over its vast expanse I could see frightened comrades in flight. A hornet’s nest had been disturbed and the whole battleground was a hive of uncoordinated activity. Amidst this chaos I discerned isolated pockets of resistance coming from at least three directions.

Greater resistance seemed to be coming from the direction of Takawira 2 Training Base. This made sense as this base, capable of holding one thousand comrades at any one time, had the highest concentration of trained and armed personnel. Besides, even if they were afraid, the instructors had to have the courage to demonstrate that the tactics they taught were effective and capable of implementation. Otherwise, when the battle ended, how would they be able to face the recruits and convince them that the training they were getting was superior to that of the enemy? The enemy they were training to fight in Rhodesia was the enemy they were confronting now. The resources that were at the disposal of the enemy now were a tiny fraction of the resources the enemy would have at his disposal in Rhodesia. The terrain on which the battle was being fought was more familiar to our forces, thereby reducing the possibility of the enemy deploying ground forces.

Though some factors were more favourable to us, the enemy had the advantage of speed, surprise and the big target our forces presented, comprising both armed and unarmed combatants. On closer scrutiny of the aerial targets the enemy planes represented, it was clearly evident the volume of fire by our forces did not correspond to actual targets at any given time. Even when there were no planes over-flying the base, a heavy barrage of small arms fire continued into the empty sky. The random firing taking place now was reminiscent of the experience I had with my platoon during my first operational deployment.

The second area of strong resistance was Takawira Base1. This had been the main training base for our recruits before the opening of Takawira Base 2 in early 1977. Takawira Base 1 was now being used for specialist training in areas such as engineering, multi-barrelled anti-aircraft guns, bazookas, mortars and heavy machineguns. Participants on these specialist courses were mostly experienced guerrilla fighters and a few others who would have just completed their basic training in guerrilla tactics. The base had at any given time about two hundred occupants. Resistance to the enemy bombardment at this base was disciplined. Whenever enemy planes over flew the base they were greeted with a heavy barrage of fire from anti-aircraft guns, heavy machineguns and small arms. When there were no planes flying over the base, the guns went silent.

The third and final direction from which I could detect coordinated resistance was the Headquarters (HQ) itself. There were between fifty and sixty comrades performing guard duties at this base at all times. Whenever senior ZANLA commanders came to Chimoio, they would be accommodated at this base. These included Members of the Politburo, Members of the Central Committee, and Members of High Command. The only person who, on the insistence of the then President of Mozambique, Comrade Samora Machel, was not allowed to spend the night at Chimoio, was Comrade President Robert Gabriel Mugabe. Because of the high profile commanders requiring protection, only experienced fighters performed guard duties at the HQ Base, even though most of the time there would be no one to protect.

As I marvelled at the spirited manner with which the comrades appeared to be defending the HQ, I wondered about whether there was a senior commander at the base. For the past two weeks, I was the most senior commander staying at the Headquarters, after the ZANLA Chief of Operations, Comrade Rex Nhongo, had left for an external visit. This morning when Kelvin and I left for the National Stores, no report of the arrival of a senior commander had been given to me. If one had arrived, surely Kelvin would have mentioned it to me. Thoughts of Kelvin brought fresh pain to my injured soul. If only I had remembered the dream when I woke up, I could have done something to save Kelvin. It was now too late. Well, at least none of our most senior commanders were at Chimoio when the attack began. Why on earth was I worrying myself with this?

But much as I wanted to shake the thought away, it kept on bouncing back. I began imagining that I had seen Comrade Tongogara’s car parked outside the house he always stayed in when he was at Chimoio. Was it really imagination, or maybe I was recalling another detail I had forgotten in the dream, or was it reality? Whether it was fantasy, dream or reality, the effect was just the same.

My heart beat hard against my chest like the pistons of a car trying to free themselves. Comrade Tongogara! No, it can’t be his car. But, even if it was, maybe his driver came alone to collect something. That can’t be true; I have never seen the driver coming to Chimoio in Comrade Tongogara’s car without Comrade Tongogara. Okay, let us suppose Comrade Tongogara came in his car, and the attack began when he was at the HQ, it does not mean that he is dead. Dead! Dear Lord, Comrade Tongogara dead! Butterflies flew in my stomach and my legs felt like jelly. I wished I could fly to the HQ, then I could establish the true facts, but instead my feet seemed held to the ground by a tonne of steel.

In our political orientation we stressed that individuals come and go but the Party always remains. Indeed, I had seen many individuals perish while the Party continued to grow in strength. But the same could not be said about Comrade Tongogara or Comrade Mugabe. If one or both of them were to go, a significant chunk of the Party would go with them. Such was the high esteem in which the two comrades were held within both ZANU and ZANLA.

I decided it would be suicidal to go to the HQ now and alone, to investigate the impact of the initial wave of attacks. My focus once again shifted to the National Stores.

By now I was about forty metres away from the place where my team had assembled to begin its daily routine. I was passing by the edge of the parade ground where yesterday there was singing and where young Daniel was motivating the comrades to commit themselves wholeheartedly to the struggle. That picture of hope and inspiration had been replaced by the death, destruction and despair that greeted me, nay that mocked me, as I surveyed the aftermath of the enemy’s ferocious bombardment of the parade ground.

It is dangerous to establish a routine in a war situation. We knew it, we taught against it, and yet we practised it. We did so not through ignorance or forgetfulness, but through conceit. The enemy would never dare attack Chimoio ZANLA Headquarters! He knows it is well defended and will cost him a humiliating defeat. Such was our arrogance that when the attack took place, we were least prepared to defend our flagship.

Every day at about eight in the morning and five in the evening, we held parades at all our bases. The morning parade presented the opportunity to assign tasks for the day and to practise military drills. The evening parade was used to impart any important information, but most importantly, to inform all our forces of the password for the evening. Passwords enabled one to identify friend from foe, and every evening a different password was given. The morning parade at the National Stores had just ended and the comrades were beginning to disperse to perform their allotted tasks when the attack began. Obviously the enemy knew our routine and timed his attack to coincide with the parades. Now, before my eyes, I could see many bodies strewn over the parade ground. Without paying close attention to each individual body, I concluded that they were all dead.

But just then, from the corner of my eye, I thought I detected some movement from one of the bodies, and I went to investigate. Staring at me, mortally wounded but with no fear on his face, was little Daniel. I could see he was clasping his AK-47 in his right hand. There was no magazine on the gun. I saw then that the magazine had fallen close to where his body lay, but there were no bullets in it. It seemed strange that he should be carrying a magazine without bullets. I examined his gun and saw that it had not been damaged and its safety catch had been released.

His left arm and a small portion of his shoulder attached to it had been ripped away from the rest of his body. The upper part of the arm had been shattered by a large fragment from a bomb, but the hand that had been sawn off the arm and thrown four metres away from the body had no lacerations and was still clasping a loaded magazine. I realised that Daniel had emptied his magazine firing at the enemy and had been mortally wounded as he was trying to load a new magazine onto his gun. By any measure, this was a most courageous young man. I bent down to offer him comfort, and kissed his cheek. My little hero smiled at me and with his last breath whispered, “THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES!”

It was as if he had waited for me to come in order to pass on his message. I knew what I needed to do for the sake of Daniel, for the sake of Kelvin, and for the sake of all the comrades who had perished for the cause of freedom. I knew I had no choice to make, for little Daniel had made it for me. The farewell smile on his courageous face was imprinted on my mind and shall forever inspire me to continue the struggle. The struggle against the enemy we were confronting. The struggle against injustice; the struggle against colonial oppression; the struggle against racism in all its forms and guises; the struggle against the notion of a superior race and its doctrine of deprivation of one race by another; the struggle against corruption; and the unforeseen struggle against an unforeseen enemy. In those three telling words, Daniel had said it all, and I took up the gauntlet.

Judging from my recent experience I knew that if I spent too long in one place lamenting the death of Daniel I could again become an opportunistic target and my fate would be the same as his. Young in body, but not in spirit, young in age, but mature in wisdom, that was Daniel, my hero. He deserved a hero’s burial, but there was no chance of that for now. My attention shifted again to completing my journey back to the National Stores – a journey that so far had been fraught with obstacles.

I surveyed my destination from the forty metres that separated me from it. There was smoke billowing up from three locations on the roof of the warehouse. From my position it was not possible to see the room where we had been working as it was on the other side of the warehouse. As if to emphasise the danger that lay ahead, a jet swooped low over the warehouse and dropped its lethal payload, leaving behind a fourth signature smoke column billowing from the roof.

I approached the building from the west and immediately went around it to get to the eastern side where our room was situated. I dreaded the fate of the rest of my team that would be revealed. I was suddenly afraid to take the last turn that concealed the truth I sought.

Like a little child observing some game rules, I decided to take the turn with my eyes closed and once on the other side, to open them. I believed that it would be less painful to open my eyes and be confronted with the complete picture of the devastation caused by the enemy bombs than to witness the same in small bits at a time.

I defended my logic by drawing a parallel with a man who is to be amputated above the knee. It would be less painful to have one clean chop at the point you want the leg amputated than to chop the toes first, followed by the foot, then the shin, followed by the knee, and finally the desired position on the thigh. The second option would bring renewed and intensified pain at every stage. I was convinced my theory was valid, and as stupid as it appeared, I went along with it. To make sure I had taken the turn, I walked with my left hand on the wall until I felt the sharp edge of the corner of the building. I took another ten steps in the direction of our room before I opened my eyes.

One, two, three … seven, eight, nine, and ten! When I did, I was shocked beyond belief. I remained rooted where I stood for a long minute, not able to comprehend the magnitude of the devastation caused by the enemy bombs. I closed and opened my eyes again, but the picture did not change. This was no fantasy, it was real. There was nothing, absolutely nothing. No evidence of death or injuries to my team or any other comrade for that matter, just nothing. I shook my head in disbelief and a cold sweat crept down my spine. Never before had I seen such complete devastation, not even in my wildest dreams.

The ground beneath my feet began to cave in, and I quickly jumped back before I was swallowed by the terrifying emptiness. Where once there was a building which, until this morning, we regarded as our operational centre, there was now nothing, just a gaping hole left behind by a one-tonne or even two-tonne bomb dropped from an enemy plane. I doubted the Rhodesian air force had bombers capable of delivering such huge tonnage. The bomber must have come from apartheid South Africa. The bomb had obliterated any evidence that a building ever existed and the hole it left behind devoured everything contained in that building in its dark belly. Had I taken the eleventh step, I would also have fallen prey to its insatiable appetite. If any member of my team had been where our small building stood when this bomb fell, I would never find out, for not a trace of evidence was left behind. What was clear to me, though, was that the bomb had not been meant for our little building, but for the warehouse. Had it not missed the target, at least a third of the warehouse and the food contained therein would have been completely destroyed.

The only direction I had not been to was to the south where the entrance into the warehouse was located. It was also the direction from which Kelvin and I had arrived when we came in the morning. The lorry still stood where we had seen it and most of the cargo that it carried had not been off-loaded. Now, added to its cargo, were the bodies of four comrades who had fallen victim to the enemy bombs, slumped over the cargo they were meant to offload. These were the comrades I had quipped with when I arrived early in the morning, as I hurried past to join my team. The exuberance with which they had greeted me had been replaced by the melancholy of death.

The driver had not been given the opportunity to alight. He died with his left hand on the steering wheel and the right hand still clutching the handle of the partially opened right door. His left foot was half rested on the accelerator pedal while the right foot was hanging partially out of the driver’s door. The driver’s right shoulder rested on the dashboard, and together with the left foot and the right hand, they supported his body and the bit of his head that still remained.

Knowing the warehouse was still a viable enemy target, it was foolhardy and inadvisable for anyone to go inside it. However, the courage I had seen on Daniel’s face, and the urging of his three dying words, were motivating me; to fail to enter the warehouse for fear of the continuing enemy bombardment would be tantamount to surrendering the struggle and betraying the silent pledge I had given to Daniel. I boldly stepped inside the warehouse.

It was a gigantic structure, about eighty metres long and thirty metres wide. Its walls were constructed from cement bricks, reinforced at the corners by steel bars. The roof was of asbestos sheets that allowed natural light through. The floor was smoothly plastered and was divided into fourteen equal sections. A two-metre wide middle passage down the length of the warehouse divided the building into two. Each of the halves was further divided into seven equal sections, with the sections separated by a one-metre passage. All the demarcations were permanently marked by green paint, making the floor of the warehouse look like a game I used to play when I was young that we called ‘Get In’.

Each section had its corresponding number clearly marked in red paint. Starting from the main entrance, sections to the left had odd numbers and sections to the right had even numbers. To retrieve any item you would need to know on which section it was packed. At the end of the building there were two offices, one for keeping records and the other for control clerks. The offices each had a door leading from the middle passage and each had a glass window. At the northern end of the passage there was an emergency exit.

The main entrance to the warehouse had a five-metre wide sliding door of corrugated sheets, from where goods were loaded or offloaded. It was outside this door that the lorry was parked when the attack began. Sometimes, light trucks (up to five tonnes) could be driven into the warehouse for loading or offloading.

Visibility inside the warehouse was poor. Electrical lights had been cut off and the natural light through the roof was obscured by smoke as a result of the bombings. Coming from the bright light outside, my eyes needed time to adjust. I strained them to see as I made my way down the middle passage and, at the same time, dragged my feet on the floor to try and detect any obstacles. Even with the limited visibility, I could tell that sections one and two were empty.

I was approaching the horizontal passage separating sections one and two from sections three and four when my right foot hit an obstacle and I began to stumble. I instinctively repositioned my left foot in an effort to regain my balance. The effort was wasted. My left foot slipped and I began to fall. In a desperate effort to break the fall, I stretched my left hand far forward so that I could use it to prop up my body from the ground. The weight of the body and the inertia of the fall were too much for one hand. My right hand that was holding the gun wanted to come to the assistance of the left hand, but the gun sling hooked on to the obstacle beneath and prevented it. Like a sack of potatoes, my body slumped over the obstacle and the palm of my left hand came to rest in some slippery liquid substance on the floor.

My vision had now improved a little and I realised the obstacle I had fallen over was the dead body of a comrade and the liquid substance was his blood. As I disentangled my gun sling from the head of the dead comrade, I noticed there was another body lying in section two. Since there was no damage to the portion of the roof directly above where these two comrades had died, and the walls surrounding them appeared undamaged from the inside, I concluded that they had received injuries from bomb fragments outside, but managed to stagger or crawl into the warehouse where they collapsed and died.

As I advanced on to sections three and four, my eyes had fully adjusted to the dim lighting in the warehouse and I could easily see that, like sections one and two, these sections were empty too. There were no dead or injured comrades on the floor of these sections.

I carried on to sections five and six. Section five had about eighteen cartons containing assorted juices. These cartons had been offloaded from the lorry that was parked outside. Only a third of the surface area covered by section five had been filled with cartons and the other two-thirds were empty. There was no sign of dead or injured comrades. Section six had been filled with cartons containing biscuits. Some of the cartons had collapsed onto the passage separating section six from section four. At least a dozen of the cartons had been shredded by a bomb and their contents pulverized. Smoke was coming from the torn cartons and smouldering biscuits. A big hole in the roof directly above section six exposed the entry point of the bomb. My quick inspection of the section revealed no casualties.

I walked down the middle passage separating section seven from section eight and everything seemed to be normal. Both sections had food containers covering their total surface areas. The roof directly above them had no holes from bombs or bullets. As I came in line with the horizontal passage separating section eight from section ten, I did notice that some bags of maize meal seemed to have fallen from their location in section ten and blocked off about a metre and a half of the passage from the wall. It seemed strange that these bags had fallen because there was no evidence of a bomb having fallen on section eight or ten. Besides, none of the bags containing the maize meal had been ruptured. I was contemplating whether to investigate further this oddity when a bomb exploded somewhere in the area of sections one to four.

Although I was not affected by the explosion, it nonetheless highlighted the danger I was exposed to as long as I remained in the targeted warehouse. I gave up on further investigating the maize bags and decided to press on with the search for casualties in the remainder of the building so that I could vacate it as quickly as possible.

From the centre passage I turned left into the horizontal passage separating section seven from section nine. Section nine was packed with bags of rice. Directly above this section, the roof had been partially collapsed by a bomb. Grains of rice were strewn on the passage. It seemed to me that the greatest impact of the bomb had been towards the horizontal passage separating section nine from section eleven. On the side where I was, there were no casualties. I turned to the centre passage so that I could proceed to the other side of section nine.

I heard a suppressed cough. It was barely audible but my ears had been trained to detect the slightest hint of any sound. What rather confused me was that it seemed to come from the sections I had covered already and where I was positive I had not missed a thing. I strained my ears hard in the hope that the sound would be repeated. I was convinced that I was not the only living human in this building, and yet I could not solve the puzzle of where the other or others could be located. Was the cough from a friend or foe? That was another missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle.

Before I entered this building I had periodically been monitoring the sky and I had seen no evidence of a parachute drop. Unless, of course, a drop occurred during the few minutes I had been in the warehouse. The probability of this happening was almost negligible. However, the probability theory states that “if something can go wrong, one day it will go wrong.” There was also the remote possibility the enemy would, in conjunction with an aerial attack, launch a motorized attack on Chimoio.

Preposterous as the idea might sound, considering the enemy would have to drive through FRELIMO garrisons in order to reach the ZANLA Headquarters, it was not without precedent. In 1976, a courageous and well-respected ZANLA operational commander known as Nyathi defected. Before news of the defection had filtered back to the rear base, the Rhodesian army quickly capitalised on this windfall. They assembled a crack force of about 20 soldiers and, in armoured vehicles identical to those used by Mozambican soldiers, they drove past FRELIMO garrisons without arousing suspicion until they reached Nyadzonya, a camp holding about two thousand refugees from Rhodesia at the time.

While having the status of refugees, the vast majority of the occupants of the camp did not wish to be permanent refugees in Mozambique. To them, Nyadzonya was a transit base before they could be sent for military training in Mozambique or Tanzania. A token number of ZANLA commanders administered the camp, but were barred by Mozambican authorities from keeping firearms as this would compromise the refugee status of the camp.

Occasionally, Mozambican authorities in the company of some ZANLA commanders would bring lorries to ferry selected personnel to go for military training. The camp administrators were usually informed a week in advance to prepare a list of those who would go for training. On this particular occasion, Nyathi, leading a crack Rhodesian force comprising black soldiers and white soldiers, with faces painted black to resemble their black colleagues, arrived at Nyadzonya just before dawn in some armoured vehicles mounted with heavy machineguns. Quickly and quietly they killed the two unarmed guards at an outpost that controlled entry into the camp, before they could alert anyone about the unannounced ‘visitors’.

Having gained entry, Nyathi who had been to the camp on several occasions in the past and was a well-known ‘comrade’ who commanded tremendous respect amongst the administrators for his valour and battlefield achievements, left his band of assassins deployed at the parade ground and walked to the hut where the camp commander stayed. He explained to the camp commander that he had come with Mozambican officials to collect some recruits for military training. The camp commander argued that they had not been given prior notice that some recruits would be taken and the selection and listing of prospective candidates had not been undertaken. Nyathi apologised for the lack of advance warning but persuasively explained that the top ZANLA leadership had also been surprised to learn that a Tanzanian ship that had brought supplies for the Mozambican government was docked at Beira harbour, and had been instructed to bring with it ZANLA recruits when it returned to Tanzania. This ship was scheduled to return that same evening, hence the urgency and the reason why they had come in the early hours of morning.

After hasty consultations with members of his staff, the camp commander saw no reason to doubt Nyathi’s word. The commander blew the emergency whistle and within five to ten minutes all the refugees were on parade.

The presence of Mozambican vehicles excited rather than frightened the refugees. Some had witnessed two or more groups of refugees leave for training. Each one of those assembled entertained the hope that this would be their lucky day. If there was any disappointment, it was because the trucks that had come looked small and would not be able to carry many of them. Perhaps this was just an advance fleet and many more would follow.

Ten to fifteen minutes after the whistle was blown, the section commanders had reported to their platoon commanders the attendance figures of their respective sections. The platoon commanders having reconciled the attendance figures of their sections were waiting to report these to their company commanders, who in turn would give their company figures to their respective battalion commanders. The whole parade maintained a strict silence that only the commanders reporting their figures could break.

Then the silence was broken. Not by the reporting commanders, but by the sound of a pistol fired in the air and a clear order barked by Nyathi to the Rhodesian assassins to “kill the terrorists.” The armoured vehicles roared into life, their guns spitting death and destruction wherever their bullets landed. Pandemonium broke loose. Screams of fear, panic and pain, mingled with the hungry echoes of the machine guns mounted on the armoured vehicles, setting the stage for the genocide being committed. The vehicles advanced onto the parade ground, mowing down any human obstacles that could not quickly escape their murderous hunt. They then formed a fighting formation to drive the still surviving but frightened refugees away from them, into the deep and treacherous Nyadzonya River where scores perished. Unsatisfied by the countless deaths his betrayal had cost, Nyathi ordered the vehicles to roll over the dead bodies on the parade ground because “some of them are feigning death”.

Like a bolt of lightning, this memory of what took place at Nyadzonya the previous year flashed through my mind. The possibility of history being repeated did not bring any fear of a possible ground attack, but instead strengthened my spirit and resolve to avenge the deaths of those killed at Nyadzonya, the deaths of Daniel and Kelvin, the deaths of all those who had died for the cause of freedom and independence. What about the parents, brothers and sisters inside Rhodesia who were persecuted daily by a brutal and racist regime for supporting the armed struggle, and who were tormented by the thought of whether they would see their children alive again, the brothers and sisters who had left to join the armed struggle.

With my renewed resolve I knew I could not inspect the remainder of the warehouse without first confirming the source of the cough I had heard. My thoughts returned to the collapsed bags partially blocking the passage separating section eight from section ten. I examined the collapsed bags more closely and was convinced that the solution to my puzzle lay on the other side of the wall of collapsed bags.

I cocked my gun and shouted boldly, “Anyone behind these bags identify yourself and come out with your hands up.”

There was no answer. Had my intuition let me down? Maybe I had imagined the cough. I decided to give it another go.

“This is Comrade Dragon. I know you are there behind these bags, identify yourselves and come out with your hands raised. I give you exactly one minute and if you don’t respond I shall throw a grenade over your heads.”

It was a bluff. I did not have any grenade on me, but the trick worked.

“Please hold it Comrade Dragon; it’s me Captain Devil and Fadzai Magamba. We also have three other comrades, I don’t know their names.” His voice was trembling with fear.

“All of you climb over the bags to this side. Leave your guns behind and no monkey business. Anyone with a weapon I will shoot, do you hear me?” I ordered. This was just a safety precaution in case there was a traitor amongst them.

They climbed over the bags to my side with Captain Devil leading. All of them wore frightened expressions and tried to avoid my accusing gaze.

“Captain Devil and you, Fadzai Magamba, is this how you operate at home, cowering in a hole when others are engaging the enemy?” I berated the two members of my team, the first ones I now knew had survived the early waves of enemy bombardment. Out of the six comrades I had withdrawn from operations in Rhodesia to join my team, I now had accounted for three. Comrade Ridzai Bazooka had been killed by a bomb while trying to run away from the enemy without offering resistance. Now comrades Captain Devil and Fadzai Magamba had barricaded themselves behind bags of maize meal in an effort to hide away from the enemy, when outside some comrades were offering real resistance. The example these three had set revealed the lack of commitment and effectiveness of some of our operational commanders.

Having satisfied myself that the five comrades were no direct threat to other comrades, but victims of uncontrolled fear, I ordered them to get their weapons and join me in completing the search for casualties in the remainder of the huge warehouse. What was evident to me was that they needed very firm control if they were to overcome their fear and play a useful role in resisting and confronting the enemy’s aggression.

A bomb had entered above section fourteen destroying a large quantity of tinned food that filled the whole of this section. Fortunately, there was no one in the section when the bomb fell. The last evidence of a bomb blast was the roof above the office used by control clerks. In this office three comrades lay dead and four were seriously injured. We quickly improvised stretchers and carried the wounded out of the warehouse to a spot we chose underneath a big tree which provided cover from both the hot weather and detection from enemy aircraft. The dead, for now, had to remain where they fell. The search for survivors in the gigantic warehouse had ended.

For the first time since the bombardment began in the early morning hours, I had not bothered to check the time. The activity in the air and the tasks I had set myself on the ground, denied me the opportunity to think about time. Twelve forty, my watch read! I could not believe that with all I had been through from the time the enemy bombardment began only about four hours had elapsed. In my mind’s eye it could well have been eight hours. Maybe my watch had once again let me down like it did when I woke up in the morning. My Swiss watch was the old generation type that needed winding at least once every thirty-six hours. Several times my watch would stop because I had forgotten to wind it for over forty hours, as it did this morning. As long as one remembered to wind it, it was one of the most reliable watches I had known.

“Captain Devil,” I sought confirmation, “what is your time?”

“Twelve forty-two, Sir” he responded after a quick look at his watch.

I re-evaluated the battlefield scenario. Dotted everywhere, many comrades were running, crisscrossing the battlefield, and others, overcome by fatigue, were walking aimlessly, resigned to their fate. Once the enemy succeeded in neutralising any coordinated pockets of resistance, he would start paying more attention to the many random opportunistic targets that I was seeing right now. Before this situation with its attendant consequences could develop, someone had to take charge of this chaotic state of affairs. We had never developed a common defence strategy for the ZANLA Headquarters in the event of such an attack. While some bases mobilised their forces to repulse the enemy attack, others had simply melted away, thereby contributing to the pool of disorganised cadres that littered the battlefield.

Before the attack began, the National Stores Base had a force level of around sixty people and of this number about forty rotated guard duties and the remainder worked as clerks, cooks and cleaners. About a quarter of the base strength had perished at the parade ground during the first wave of bombardments. The rest, including the guards, had simply vanished. The commander of the base had been killed under circumstances I had the misfortune to witness earlier, neither fighting nor mobilising his forces to fight, but in flight.

I resolved to take charge of the situation. First, I took stock of the forces I could immediately bring under my direct command. In all, there were nine comrades – the two sector commissars recently withdrawn from operations in Rhodesia to join my commissariat team, three comrades whose backgrounds or names I did not know yet, and four stretcher cases with varying degrees of injury. The combat readiness of the forces under my command was just over 50%. Their combat effectiveness, considering the state in which they had been discovered – cowering behind bags of maize meal – was deplorable to say the least. However, in the majority of cases, a force is as effective as the commander who leads it. My primary and immediate task was thus to mould this unit of five able-bodied men into an effective fighting force. I ordered the five healthy comrades to assemble about thirty metres away from the tree underneath which we had laid and camouflaged the four injured comrades.

My address to the five comrades had to be short, sharp and to the point because of the ongoing enemy activities in the air.

“Who amongst the five of you has not received military training?” No response.

“Good. Can I take your silence to mean you have all been trained?” The response was a mixture of nodding and verbal affirmations. I had expected to have only verbal responses, but I chose not to make an issue out of this.

“All of you are a disgrace to our struggle, and a betrayal of our fallen heroes. Their blood is on your hands. Were you trained and armed to hide away from the enemy? Oh Dear Lord! Why did you cause your parents pain and anguish coming to join the struggle when you are all sissies waiting to be butchered without a fight.” I was seething with anger as I castigated them for their cowardice.

As I berated the five comrades, my gaze shifted from one to the other and finally settled on two – Comrades Captain Devil and Fadzai Magamba. So intense and piercing was my focus on them that the other three comrades seemed to fade away from my vision.

“You two disgraceful heaps of rubbish, not only are you trained combatants, but you are senior operational commanders just recently withdrawn from the battlefield. Is this the way you command your troops in battle – cowering away from the enemy? Your rightful place is before a court martial, and your deserved sentence – death by firing squad”, I vented my anger on the two comrades who earlier today were a part of my team that was now disbanded as a result of enemy action.

“What example are you setting for the other comrades who have never been to the battlefield?” The question joggled my brain to register the presence of the other three comrades standing close to Captain Devil and Fadzai Magamba, whom I had inexplicably failed to bring into focus.

I addressed the one standing nearest to me. “You miserable looking nincompoop, are you a comrade or a Selous Scout.”

“A real comrade, Comrade Dragon.”

“And your name?”

“Tambudzai Mabhunu (Molest the Boers).”

“And you molest them by hiding behind bags of maize meal?” I retorted.

“And you, buffoon?” I enquired, shifting my gaze from Comrade Tambudzai Mabhunu to the comrade standing next to him.

“I am Comrade Tererai Midzimu (Heed the Spirits).”

“And do you heed the advice of Mbuya Nehanda and our other spirit mediums?”

“I try to …”

I did not bother to hear him finish his response, but instead addressed the third comrade.

“And you, confused cockroach?”

“My name is Tongai Zimbabwe (Rule Zimbabwe), Comrade Dragon.”

“Who? The Boers?”

“No Comrade Dragon, I want ZANU…” Before Comrade Tongai could finish his sentence, we heard the sound of an approaching aircraft, and the five comrades took to their heels without a second thought.

“Idiots! Stop right where you are or I will shoot you!” My cold, menacing voice bellowed out like a clap of thunder, inducing a greater fear than that caused by the sound of an approaching enemy plane. “Stand upright and still where you are. If you make a slight movement, the enemy will easily detect your presence.”

The five comrades froze where they were, more out of fear of being killed by a comrade’s bullet than obedience to an order. After the plane had flown past, I called the comrades to come close to where I stood.

“Listen to me very, very carefully,” my voice was measured and even more menacing, “anyone who turns his back against the enemy is, by default, an agent of the enemy, deserving the same treatment befitting the enemy. You were not trained to be cowards. The virulence of cowardliness shall not be tolerated or allowed to spread. Not in our struggle! From now on, you will act and behave like brave fighters, deserving the accolades of our suffering masses for being true liberators.”

I paused and surveyed their faces to determine whether my message was registering at all in their brains. Judging by their attentiveness, the message had struck a chord in their ear and hopefully not gone out through the other.

Taking advantage of the encouraging signs, I pressed on with my message. “For the sake of our struggling masses and our quest for freedom and independence, I now appoint myself the judge, the jury and the executioner over any comrade who chooses to further the cause of the enemy through fear and panic. Anyone who chooses not to heed my words provides me with the unique opportunity to demonstrate and prove my resolve.”

In boxing, when you deliver a lethal blow to your adversary and the adversary is momentarily dazed, a professional fighter will exploit this opportunity and quickly move in with a knockout punch. I did just that.

“Those amongst you who are committed to the armed struggle and want to swear that from henceforth they shall never again be intimidated by the enemy come and join hands with me. Do not come if you do not mean it or are not sure of yourself, for the price of betrayal is certain death.”

Without any hesitation they all came forward and we put our hands together, one over the other, and swore eternal allegiance to our Party, our President, and the successful execution of our struggle. We committed ourselves never to turn our backs against the enemy, no matter how powerful he might appear to be. That said, we stood quietly together in that same position, and each and every one, bonded together, experienced an exhilarating feeling of oneness and comradeship like we had never known before.

We were in that position when we heard the sound of an approaching plane. None amongst us moved. I watched the expressions on their faces and was delighted to see no trace of fear on any of them. The plane flew past over our heads, delivered its lethal payload at the warehouse, only a few metres in front of us, and continued its flight past the warehouse, before banking to the left as it began to retrace its path back to Rhodesia.

I was the first to break the silence. “Hooray! Let us together now, without fear, march forward and vanquish the enemy.”

The next twenty to thirty minutes were spent in organisational details and battlefield orders. I appointed Comrade Captain Devil to be section commander of the nine-man section comprising five able-bodied and four disabled comrades. I made Comrade Fadzai Magamba his second-incommand. The immediate task for Captain Devil was to detach and lead two members of his section to go in search of the panic-stricken comrades traversing the battlefield in an effort to escape or hide away from the enemy. All those mobilised were to be brought to our new Operational Headquarters (Op. HQ), our present location, for a quick orientation and placement into cohesive fighting units. Unless and until this was done, the disorganised comrades would, one by one, perish at the hands of the enemy. The injured comrades were to be brought to the Op. HQ with the assistance of the mobilised able-bodied comrades, if they could not walk on their own. No injured comrade, no matter how severe the injuries, could be left behind.

Fadzai Magamba was to remain with one able-bodied comrade. Their primary task was to fend for the injured comrades and ensure they were fed and given lots of juice to prevent dehydration. The security of the Op. HQ was in their hands and they had to pay special attention to guarantee there was no unauthorised entry into the warehouse. The command structure and roles of the fighters would be reviewed periodically as and when our force levels increased.

After assigning responsibilities to my budding force, I decided it was time that I took stock of the unfolding developments. First, I wanted to personally observe the degree of injuries of my four wounded comrades. I moved towards the big tree under which we had laid and camouflaged them and was satisfied that the camouflage we had hastily provided was effective in shielding them from the prying eyes of the enemy high above in the sky as well as from the piercing rays of the sun that occasionally broke through the clouds.

I then caught a glimpse of Comrade Fadzai Magamba and the comrade under his direct command, as they disappeared into the warehouse. It was funny I thought to myself, that they had prioritised getting food and drinks even before they had inspected the injured comrades in order to determine their individual requirements. Just as quickly as the thought had entered my mind, the rationale for their actions became obvious to me – their priority was to fill their own stomachs first.

The four injured comrades were laid around a big tree, about five metres from each other. The dispersion was intended to minimise further injuries in the event that the enemy bombed the position. The first comrade I visited had sustained serious injuries to both his legs and was suffering excruciating pain. He begged me to use my gun to end his life because he could not stand the pain. His pleas were stabs to my wounded soul. I resisted the urge to cry, put up a brave face and assured him that everything would be okay. I promised to bring him pain killers or a sedative quickly to relieve him of the pain and further assured him that at the first available opportunity he would be evacuated to Chimoio town or Gondola* where there were better medical facilities.

All of our bases had a clinic staffed by qualified medical assistants. In addition, every trained fighter was given training in basic first aid and could treat common illnesses and minor battlefield injuries. Operations and other complicated medical procedures were referred to the main medical base known as Parirenyatwa, named after Dr Samuel Tichafa Parirenyatwa¹. This base had three modern and well-equipped mobile theatres and there were at least two qualified doctors available at any time to deal with emergencies. Obviously, the enemy would have targeted Parirenyatwa Base as one of its primary targets and taking our injured there was out of the question and suicidal too.

The clinic at the National Stores Base was a small, detached building that was of no significance to an enemy whose preoccupation was the complete destruction of the large warehouse. Since the attack had begun, the clinic had so far been spared.

As I went to the second casualty, I saw Comrade Fadzai Magamba and the comrade who had accompanied him emerge from the warehouse. I shouted to Comrade Fadzai to go to our clinic and bring some morphine and bandages. He was to give the comrade I had just seen a 5ml dosage of the sedative and bandage his wounds.

I at first mistook the second casualty, a female comrade, for a boy because of her short hair and the camouflage trousers and shirt that she wore. A closer look at her breasts, the lipstick and the earrings she wore, put her sexual identity beyond doubt. Her right hand had almost been severed just above the elbow and only a thin membrane connected it to the rest of the body. She had bled profusely and blood was still oozing from her shattered arm. The girl was sliding into unconsciousness. I could not control my emotions. Ian Douglas Smith and his surrogates – Muzorewa, Sithole and Chirau – were responsible for causing all this pain and suffering. I swore, I promised revenge, and I said a silent prayer for retribution.

I looked at the girl and her face showed no pain, her breathing was reasonably strong and stable. “Where there is life, there is hope,” I thought to myself. I steadied my nerves and did what I had to do. I thrust my right hand into my pocket and took out a penknife that I always carried with me. With my left hand, I took the girl’s lifeless hand and lifted the arm to reveal the membrane that connected it to the rest of the body, and boldly cut off the arm from the rest of the body. Then I tore the girl’s shirt and without any consideration to hygiene, used it as a temporary measure to stop the bleeding. I then called to Comrade Fadzai, who by now was sedating the first comrade, to quickly finish what he was doing and then come and properly dress the girl’s wound. Little did I know then that my resolute action had saved the girl’s life.

I moved to the third casualty but could not detect any movement. I knelt down beside the comrade and took his arm in order to feel his pulse. The effort was wasted as rigor mortis was already setting in. I left the body where it lay and moved on to the fourth position.

This female comrade had a deep gash on her right thigh which was causing her a lot of pain. The wound had stopped bleeding and, in comparison with the other two cases, her condition was relatively better and not life threatening. I had a short conversation with her in which I tried to lift her spirits and assure her that everything would be okay. She showed tremendous courage and in between gasps of pain, managed to force a smile or two. I left her after making arrangements for her to receive first aid and some food.

We had finished attending to the injured when Captain Devil returned. He had managed to round up and bring with him seventeen comrades, of whom two were stretcher cases and four were walking wounded. I was reasonably happy with the progress. I told Captain Devil to continue his efforts in rounding up more and more comrades and in the meantime I would address those comrades he had brought, motivate them and organise them into a credible fighting force. Captain Devil, accompanied by comrades Tererai Midzimu and Tambudzai Mabhunu went back to continue their hunt.

Before addressing the newcomers, I chose another tree, not very far from the one under which we had laid and camouflaged the first four wounded comrades (now three after one had died). We carried the two new stretcher cases and laid and camouflaged them beneath this big tree.

I then ordered the other fifteen comrades to assemble and, as I did with the pioneer group, motivated the new arrivals to have courage to confront the enemy. If we continued to run in panic and fear, the enemy would hunt us down one by one until we all perished, I stressed. I told them of the courage I had seen on Daniel’s face early in the morning and his dying words to continue the struggle. I urged them to take up the gauntlet as I had committed myself to do before our dying young hero. True, every man or woman, including the seemingly formidable enemy, experiences fear. The difference between bravery and cowardice is the ability or inability to overcome fear. If we demonstrated courage by conquering fear we would, in so doing, drive fear and panic right into the heart of the enemy.

As I continued to motivate the comrades I heard the distant sound of a plane and looked up into the sky. The plane was hurtling towards the ground, engulfed in flames. “Look up and see,” I shouted in ecstatic delight. “That orange ball you see,” pointing to the burning plane, “is the embodiment of the courage of some of our comrades!” I found out later that this Rhodesian jet crash landed at Vanduzi Crossroads, not far from Chimoio, and the pilot was killed in the crash.

Satisfied that I had fired the comrades with a new determination to fight and defeat the enemy, I set about outlining our strategy for achieving the goal.

As soon as Captain Devil returned I was going to reorganise the force into effective fighting units. In the meantime, I wanted to know whether amongst them there were medical assistants. I was relieved to hear there were two experienced medics and I appointed the more senior of the two a section commander and the other, his second-in-command. Under their care were the three injured comrades taken from the warehouse, the two stretcher cases recently brought by Captain Devil, and the four new arrivals with minor injuries.

The medics and the four with slight injuries were to ensure that the stretcher cases were well looked after through provision of medicines and food. The comrades with major injuries were to be prepared for possible evacuation to Chimoio town or Gondola when evening fell. While we waited for Captain Devil to return, I asked comrades Fadzai Magamba and Tongai Zimbabwe to deploy the uncommitted eleven comrades in defensive positions around our injured comrades. I went to a secluded spot to give myself the uninterrupted opportunity to reflect on the day’s events.

There was still coordinated resistance coming from the direction of Takawira Base 2, Takawira Base 1, and the Headquarters. This to me was a source of inspiration. But my spirits sank when I surveyed the expanse of the battlefield and saw, dotted everywhere, the continuing and confused flight of many comrades. I consoled myself with the thought that this confusion that was a sore both to my eyes and my mind, was in fact, the pool from which I would build my force for the defence of Chimoio.

I looked at my watch and it was just after three in the afternoon, and I was thinking to myself that Captain Devil should be back any moment now. I lay on my back and tried to relax a little. The feeling of the AK-47 by my side gave me comfort and confidence. My mind began to be preoccupied with the thought of how I would use my force which, I hoped, would number around a hundred by the end of the day. At the same time as I was formulating my strategy, my eyes kept scanning the sky and noting the presence and frequency of the enemy flights as they crisscrossed above the length and breadth of our numerous bases.

The pattern was the same – a plane would come armed with bombs, drop them on a predetermined target or, if such target could not be identified, on an opportunistic target, and fly back to Rhodesia. In my idle observation of the enemy’s modus operandi, I saw two planes flying towards our bases. Just before crossing our airspace, they started dropping their bombs, one after the other. It made no sense at all, but I thought perhaps they had seen a large group of comrades going in the direction of Chimoio town and found it too tempting to ignore for the sake of a fixed, predetermined target. I could have gone along with this logic had the planes not resumed dropping their ‘silent’ bombs in quick succession – two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve… I stopped counting and panicked. These were not bombs, they were paratroopers!

My panic was not out of fear for myself, but out of grave concern for the lives of many of the comrades. The logical direction of flight when attacked was in the direction of Chimoio town. It was highly unlikely that the enemy would pursue his prey up to, or close to the town, for fear of provoking the Mozambican army into joining the confrontation. The majority of the comrades continued to go where logic told them to go, oblivious to the deployment of enemy paratroopers.

Most successful military strategists defy logic. They put themselves in the position of their adversary and deduce what their natural reaction to a situation would be. By behaving in a manner that is contrary to the wisdom of logic, they create surprise, a key element for success. The enemy’s gamble seemed to have worked. His audacious deployment did not provoke any reaction from the Mozambican forces based in Chimoio town, and further, as I continued to study the battlefield scenario, it was evident that most comrades had not seen the deployment of the enemy paratroopers. The comrades continued to run towards Chimoio town in a direction that would bring them head-on with the Rhodesian special forces.

I was deep in a mood of melancholy introspection when Captain Devil reported back. He had managed to gather an additional twenty-eight ablebodied comrades, bringing our force to fifty-three. After a quick politicisation of the new arrivals, I organised my force into a platoon and elevated Comrade Captain Devil to the position of platoon commander, with Comrade Fadzai Magamba as second in command. The platoon had four sections. The section that included the injured comrades remained as I had recently constituted it. All the other comrades were placed in three sections and I promoted comrades Tambudzai Magamba, Tererai Midzimu and Tongai Zimbabwe to each command a section.

Even before Captain Devil had returned, I had finalised in my mind how I wanted my forces to be deployed. I called Captain Devil and Fadzai Magamba aside to discuss the implementation of my plans. There were three overriding objectives. The first was to protect the lives of the comrades by preventing them from using the escape route leading to the lurking danger of the Rhodesian paratroopers. Secondly, to protect the strategic food reserves at the National Stores by preventing continued air bombardments or any possible ground attack on the warehouse. The third objective was to evacuate casualties from the battlefield to safer havens.

To achieve the first objective I wanted a section to be permanently deployed in the general area used to escape to Chimoio for as long as the attack on our bases continued. Their role would be to warn the comrades about the Rhodesian paratroopers and direct them to come to the National Stores to link up with my forces.

The second objective required that the enemy planes be engaged before they dropped their bombs on the warehouse. Food was a strategic commodity and during the past two years it had been very scarce. It takes a lot of effort and time to mobilise and obtain food reserves, as well as items of clothing. Unless we preserved the stocks we already had, we ran the risk of starvation in the period just after the end of hostilities. The forces that would be involved in this ‘offensive defence’ must not take positions close to where the wounded were laid. No random firing would be tolerated. Opening and halting of fire must be according to orders given by commanders. Commanders could only give the order to open fire when the planes were within shooting range. After engaging enemy planes, the forces were to re-deploy in a different position to prevent the enemy fixing the comrades’ positions in their bombing runs.

The third objective sought to ameliorate the pain and suffering endured by the injured comrades by rendering appropriate medical and psychological attention, and at the earliest possible opportunity, evacuating them to Chimoio town or Gondola where they would have better medical care.

I left the fulfilment of the first and second objectives entirely in the hands of my commanders. This gave me the opportunity to reflect on the bigger picture. Was the enemy going to continue the attack the following day? I hoped not, but feared for the worst. If he was going to continue, there was likely to be an increase in bombardments and a possible widening of the use of ground forces. Judging from experience gained in the battlefields at home, the enemy planes did not have night fighting capabilities. Therefore, by last light, there should be an end to all enemy activities in the air. In the event that the attack ended today, we would need to take stock of casualty figures and damage to property and equipment, beginning early next morning. There was also an urgent need to bury our dead, as their bodies would deteriorate quickly in the hot conditions.

Supposing the enemy chose to continue his attack, what targets were likely to interest him most? The National Stores, from which I had established a line of defence, was one such target. The HQ itself, as the nerve centre that accommodated the most senior military commanders, and from where our national strategy for the fight against the Rhodesian regime was crafted, had the psychological importance of being the flagship for ZANLA and the place where top secret operational documents were expected to be kept. If the enemy wanted to use ground forces against our bases, this would probably be the most preferred target in order to capture senior ZANLA commander/s and confiscate sensitive operational documents. Parirenyatwa Base had our biggest hospital and among its patients were comrades who had sustained injuries at the battlefront and could be a reservoir of intelligence for the enemy. The base had very expensive equipment which the enemy would delight in destroying.

The base I hoped and prayed the enemy would never discover was our National Armoury. All the weaponry, ammunition and other equipment for all our military operations originated from this base. Important as it was, it was the least known base to the majority of the comrades, including myself. The exact location of the base was a well-guarded secret. The general area where it was located was a large expanse of woodlands and undulating hills stretching for kilometres, which was out of bounds to all except for the very few who were security cleared to enter the base. The comrades who guarded the base were specially trained abroad and security-vetted, and were not allowed to go out of the base to mix with other comrades.

If you consider that I was a senior commander (Member of General Staff) within the ranks of ZANLA, and yet I had no knowledge of the actual location of the National Armoury, it demonstrates how secret the base was. Neither did we know the force strength in this base. All supplies or resupplies of weapons or ammunition were done through an intermediary base that represented the furthest limit to which all other comrades were allowed to go. It was at this intermediary base that Kelvin had sought permission in the morning to go and obtain a rifle for my temporary use, a journey from which he never returned.

As my mind analysed the ongoing developments, I kept reminding myself that it would be a tragedy if the National Armoury were discovered. So far, I was convinced it had not been, because we would have heard loud explosions as the enemy was sure to destroy any large stockpiles of arms and munitions.

The sun was setting. As it disappeared beyond the hills, so did the planes – like the worker bees protecting the queen bee. The comrades’ guns that had barked at the sight of the unwelcome intruders fell silent. There was a deathly quiet in all the bases like I had never experienced before.

Soon it would be dark. I wanted to take stock of the progress we had made during the day, as well as unveiling my plans for the evening before darkness enveloped the sky. I ordered Comrade Captain Devil to bring me all the commanders, telling them to temporarily relinquish command to their respective second-in-command.

Comrade Captain Devil had been transformed from the cowering coward I had uncovered in the warehouse in the morning into a confident, courageous, and inspiring commander. He outlined the achievements of the forces under his command from the time I assigned him overall command. Our force had now risen from fifty-three to 147, of whom nine had sustained serious injuries and eight had minor injuries. The force level could have been 150, but the last enemy plane to come on a bombing raid at the National Stores received heavy sustained fire from my forces and had to prematurely eject its bombs. The bombs did not reach their intended target but instead dropped on our positions with the seriously injured comrades, instantly killing four.

When the enemy realised there was coordinated resistance at the National Stores, his bombing attacks at this target ended. I had been vindicated in my assertion that to quickly end the battle, we had to engage the enemy vigorously. Except for the section deployed to intercept comrades trying to escape to Chimoio through the route where I had seen Rhodesian paratroopers deploy, all the others were at this base awaiting further orders.

I congratulated all the commanders for acquitting themselves so well during the day. “Through your courage and wise leadership, we have now moulded a credible force that can stand up to any amount of enemy aggression. Should the enemy choose to continue his attack tomorrow, we should not be found wanting in our resolve to defeat him.”

I then announced the promotion of Captain Devil to company commander – a remarkable three promotions in one day. These promotions had a motivational effect on Captain Devil. I empowered him with the responsibility of reorganising the company into platoons and sections as he saw fit during the evening. I also wanted him to immediately detach a platoon consisting of thirty able-bodied comrades, the nine stretcher cases and the eight walking wounded to go to Chindunduma base in Gondola.

The medical section had anticipated my intentions and prepared all the sick for a possible evacuation. By 8.30 pm the platoon had received food rations taken from the warehouse and reported their readiness to move. Captain Devil had appointed Comrade Batanai Vatema (Africans be United) to command the platoon, with Comrade Mabhunu Muchapera as his second in command. Before their departure I briefed the two platoon commanders that their mission was to leave all the seventeen wounded comrades for further medical attention, before returning to rejoin us at the National Stores base. The platoon was to avoid the more direct route that would take them towards where I had seen the paratroopers deploy.

They were also to approach Chindunduma base with caution as we did not yet know whether it had been attacked. If a normal situation existed at Chindunduma, the platoon could have a warm meal there, take a short rest and, just before dawn, return to rejoin us. I wanted the platoon to return by not later than 6 am as it was likely that the enemy would continue his assault on our bases at first light the following day.

After the platoon escorting the wounded comrades had gone, I left the reorganisation of our forces entirely in the hands of Comrade Captain Devil and went to a secluded spot to review the day’s events and the likely scenarios for the following day. I lay down with the hard ground serving as my bed and the trunk of a fallen tree as my pillow. The process of cogitation, if it happened at all, must have lasted a very brief moment, for all I remembered was waking up with a fright from a very deep sleep.

Attack – Day 2

The time on my watch was just after 3 am, I must have slept for about five and a half hours. The rapidity and intensity with which events had unfolded during the past eighteen to nineteen hours left my brain exhausted and confused. Conflicting signals were being transmitted to my brain urging me to sleep and to be awake at the same time. Both signals were equally compelling, leaving my fatigued and confused brain numb and unable to take a decision. I continued to lie on my ‘hard bed’ in a stupor, unable to decipher whether I was asleep or awake.

The noisy little winged companions that kept me company when I was asleep, punching holes into my skin and draining blood from my body, had increased their harassment. I slapped at them but missed and flinched at selfinflicted pain that drove the stupor out of my brain and forced it to make a decision.

As I scratched the itchy pimples from the mosquito bites, I was now fully awake and my mind alert. There was an eerie silence in the Base and it seemed all the comrades were fast asleep. I decided to inspect the guard positions to find out if the guards, too, were asleep. To my pleasant surprise, on all the positions I visited the guards were wide awake. I was advancing to the last guard positions when I was challenged to identify myself. The challenger’s voice was distinctly familiar. Using the password of the evening I responded to the challenge and then said, expressing my surprise, “I did not expect you to be awake so early.”

“In fact I could not and did not sleep the whole evening,” responded Captain Devil, “so I decided I should check the alertness of our guards at this early hour. I am glad I did so because the majority of them were asleep in their positions.”

I was embarrassed that while I slept Captain Devil had been awake, and now he had beaten me to the task. That’s why, of course, on all guard positions the guards had been alert – some had just been woken from their sleep. I lacked the moral authority to blame them for failure to fulfil their duty to expected standards; I too had succumbed to the pressures of the last day.

“Well done Captain Devil, your performance has indeed exceeded my expectations. Well done once again!”

Since the time was just after 4 am, I instructed Captain Devil to wake all the comrades and make sure they were fully prepared to engage the enemy should he choose to continue his attack any time after daybreak.

By 6 am there was a tense expectation that the enemy could again begin attacking us from the air. The deadline I had set for the platoon that escorted the sick to Chindunduma had come and gone, but still they had not returned. Maybe they had overslept and would arrive a little later. Or worse, they could have been intercepted by the enemy’s ground forces. Whatever the circumstances, I began worrying about their safety and silently proffered a prayer for their safe return.

The enemy did not disappoint our expectations. At about 6.30 am there were simultaneous attacks on all our bases. Yesterday the attacks had been a complete surprise and our reaction one of panic and pandemonium. Today was a different story altogether. In all our bases where there were armed comrades, there was a spirited and coordinated response to the enemy’s aggression. If yesterday the enemy had thought he had destroyed our will to fight, today he was surprised by our courageous determination to defend our flagship. Indeed, today there were no sitting ducks on parade, oblivious of the genocidal massacre about to be unleashed. Yes, today we were ready and we were motivated and eager to confront the aggressor, no matter how superior.

The ZANLA tradition of courage and resilience today shone through. The enemy took note of the changed circumstances and after the first wave of attacks there was a pause of about two hours as he reassessed his strategy.

Meanwhile I had instructed Captain Devil to increase the number of comrades deployed to intercept the comrades fleeing in the direction of Chimoio. I reasoned that it was only a matter of time before the enemy felt he had saturated his predetermined targets with bombs and his attention would then shift to random opportunistic targets. We had very limited time within which to clear the battlefield of such targets. To suggest that all of these fleeing comrades were cowards would be grossly misleading. The majority of them had no weapons and some of them had not received any training at all. Among those who were armed, most had no prior experience of battle. Given this background, one could not expect the untrained and unarmed to merely stand by and be cannon fodder for the murderous regime. Any notion that the enemy had been subdued was soon dispelled. A blitzkrieg combining fixed wing aircraft and helicopters was unleashed with such ferocity that, even though expected, it still took us by surprise. My worst fears had now been realised and we were certain to suffer more casualties than the day before. The comrades rose to the occasion and responded with tenacity and efficiency to the enemy’s onslaught.

After an hour and a half of sustained attacks, the enemy again broke off the action. These pauses gave us the opportunity to replenish our ammunition and reorganise our defences. Important too, the lull in fighting gave us the much needed opportunity to attend to the injured comrades.

During the day, the number of comrades that had been brought under my direct command had continued to climb. Captain Devil, who had seen his rank further elevated to that of a battalion commander, had shown such astounding courage and great command capabilities that I found it difficult to believe he was the same comrade who, yesterday, had displayed quite opposite qualities. I was now comfortable to delegate to him total responsibility for the command and control of the comrades under my direct authority.

Soon it would be sunset. The arrival of evening would bring its protective shield of darkness to provide cover from the enemy’s aerial bombardments. Within the next thirty to forty minutes I should be able to vouch with certainty that the marauding sorties of the enemy had ended for the day. However, that was not to be. Just when I thought I should regroup my commanders to reveal my plans for the evening, I was interrupted by the fast approaching sound of enemy planes. They deposited their lethal payloads and returned to Rhodesia. But the lessons of yesterday had not been missed by the enemy. Each time he came to bomb our base he would be met by a heavy volley of fire. The whole of today the enemy had been dropping bombs from a distance and missing the intended target, the gigantic warehouse. Only once did an enemy bomb hit an unintended target. Having missed the huge target, a bomb fell over a position where a section of our comrades had deployed. Two comrades were instantly killed and another four received minor injuries. In his last assault of the day it seemed the enemy had come only to wish a horrible evening to the living and the promise of an equally horrible tomorrow. I silently wished the enemy the same.

At the end of the day the number of comrades under command had risen dramatically to 640. Of these, 276 were untrained and a further thirty-three had varying degrees of injuries. I wanted both the untrained and the injured to relocate to Chindunduma Base.

The platoon that I assigned to accompany the injured to Chindunduma yesterday had not reported back. I had specifically instructed the commander to be back not later than 6 o’clock in the morning. Now it was nearly seven in the evening and still we had not heard any word about them. Could it be they had walked into an enemy ambush and had been wiped out? There had been a deployment of paratroopers yesterday and these could have changed their location and our platoon could have just walked into their new position. But that seemed improbable. Even if they had fallen victim to a sophisticated and superior enemy, there would at least have been a few survivors to tell the story. I was in no doubt that one or more of such survivors could have managed to return to base with news of such a tragic occurrence. Besides, we would have heard the sound of gunfire if a fire fight had taken place. Or could it be that when they got to Chindunduma they walked into a base that had been overrun by the enemy and were either killed or captured. Again this was an unlikely scenario, bearing in mind that the platoon had trained and armed comrades who could have put up a brave fight.

Finding no plausible reason for the failure of the platoon to return, I then laid the blame on myself. I shouldn’t have sent the platoon with inexperienced commanders. Given so many unknowns, I should have commanded the platoon myself.

Today I would not repeat the mistake. The stakes were too high – 276 untrained and thirty-three injured comrades, then add about twenty armed escorts and the total would come to 329. I gathered my commanders and told them of my decision to accompany the untrained and injured comrades to Chindunduma. Should anything happen to me and I failed to return, Captain Devil was to assume my position and all my responsibilities.

There was visible anxiety amongst my men when I bid them farewell and promised that, barring some unforeseen misfortune, I should be back by first light the following morning.

Previous experience had taught me that night navigation can be a hazardous and treacherous undertaking. Under normal circumstances, it would take us about three and half hours to walk to Gondola. From Gondola it would take just about twenty minutes to walk to Chindunduma base. Today the circumstances were abnormal. Yesterday, I had seen enemy paratroopers deploy in positions that effectively blocked the use of our direct link with Chindunduma. There was no way of telling now whether the enemy still held or had withdrawn from these positions. To be on the safe side, we were going to use a circuitous route that would circumvent the obvious suspect positions.

At first we headed west, a direction almost opposite where we wanted to go. After travelling for about forty minutes, we veered in a north-westerly direction. I knew the terrain well and even in darkness I could tell where to expect obstacles. We were about an hour away from our destination when one of the medics informed me that the condition of one of our comrades had deteriorated. I halted our advance and went to see the reported serious case. The comrade was both feverish and muttering gibberish. I tried to calm him down and to assure him that in an hour’s time he would receive the best possible medical attention at Gondola. There was no sign whatsoever that he listened to or heard what I was saying, as he continued to gibber away in his incomprehensible language. I wasn’t even sure that he had noticed my presence. I was trying hard to make sense of what he was saying when he suddenly went quiet. My immediate suspicion was that he had died or was finalising his preparations to walk through ‘the valley of death’.

To confirm my suspicions, I knelt down and took his wrist in order to feel his pulse. What happened next, no science can ever explain. The comrade, who we regarded as our most serious stretcher case, lifted himself off the stretcher with such force that he jerked me upright. Had I not released his wrist, I would have been dragged along with him as he took bold steps forward. As if in a trance, his gaze was fixed straight ahead as though he was attracted to, or hypnotised by an invisible figure ahead of him. My panicky thoughts ordered my eyes to seek courage and encouragement from the comrades who had followed me to view the sick comrade. The stretcher bearers had disappeared, the medic who had brought me here was nowhere to be seen, my batman, Donaldson, had melted away, and the three other comrades who had accompanied me were out of sight.

The only comrade I could see around me was the sick comrade, or was it his apparition? The thought was frightening and I wanted to run away, away from him. Just then, about fifteen paces ahead of me, the figure collapsed. Instead of running away from it, I ran towards it. When I reached the comrade, froth had formed in his mouth and he was dead.

Conscience forbade me from leaving the comrade where he had died. I resolved we would carry him up to Chindunduma and have him accorded a decent burial. Persuading those who had carried the comrade when he was ill, and all those who had been witnesses to the strange manner of his death, to carry his dead body was an impossible task. Even enlisting those not in this category was difficult because word had spread like wild fire to the rest of the detachment about the strange occurrence of the evening.

As we set off on the last leg of our journey to Chindunduma, the mood within the detachment was gloomy, largely due to the natural sadness a dead body attracts. The gloom was further accentuated by the sound of a short burst of automatic gunfire, though at a safe distance from our position – a sure reminder that life, for all of us, was an expendable resource. The sound was not that of the rifles that we used, but of the FN rifles used by the enemy. Coming from the general direction where the enemy had deployed his paratroopers yesterday, this seemed to be confirmation that the enemy had not withdrawn.

Around 12.30 am we got to Chindunduma. Fearing that the base could have been taken over by the enemy, we approached very cautiously. We were pleased to find that a near normal situation obtained. At this late hour the children were still in the middle of having dinner. Even though the base had not been attacked, all the children were being evacuated during the day to secret locations, from the day our Headquarters was attacked. They would come back to their base after 7 pm, hence the reason why their evening meal was being served late. I noticed also that there were a large number of adult comrades in the base, whom I later learned were those who had escaped the enemy bombardments of our bases and had made it safely to Chindunduma. From these, I organised a small burial party for our dead comrade.

I arranged for the twenty comrades who would accompany me back to our base to be given food ahead of everyone else. After eating they were to take a short early rest in readiness for the return to our Headquarters at 4 am. A room was allocated where they would all sleep together so that I would have no problem locating them when the time came for us to go. Only after I had finalised all the arrangements did I realise how hungry I was. Except for an early breakfast, I had not eaten anything the whole day. While food was being prepared for me, I took a quick but refreshing bath.

I was preparing to take a short rest when I saw the platoon commander I had assigned to bring the sick to Chindunduma yesterday. He was visibly embarrassed to see me. I decided to add to his embarrassment.

“So you decided to enrol as a pupil, rather than return to confront the enemy?” I chastised Comrade Batanai Vatema. The beaming smile he had worn just before he saw me was frozen on his face. Anyone unaware of what conversation was taking place would wonder whether he was grinning or preparing to cry.

“You should not be worried,” I continued to rub salt into his wounded pride, “the revolution takes care of both adults and kids. You are free to choose which one you want to be. Of course, I can see you chose to be a kid, so welcome to Chindunduma Infants School.”

“No Comrade Dragon,” he finally broke his silence, “it was not my wish that I should not return as per your instruction, but when the time came for the platoon to return, I could not locate my troops.”

“What a pity,” I feigned sympathy, “so you were a commander without troops? Since your wish was to return, you now have the opportunity to fulfil it because in a few hours time I will be going back and you can join me.”

At 3.45 am I left the bed on which I had been reclining for the past one and a half hours, but had completely failed to find sleep. I quickly brushed my teeth, washed my face and put on my camouflage uniform. It was exactly 4 am when I opened the door leading into the room where twenty members of my detachment had been allocated to sleep. I switched on the lights and noticed that there were only seven comrades sleeping in the room. I thought I had come to the wrong room and began to leave.

“Comrade Dragon, is it already time for us to leave?” my batman inquired, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Yes, it is already 4 am, where are the rest?”

“We all slept together in this room, maybe they are up, preparing themselves for the journey back,” my batman replied. That made sense, for all the section commanders were not in the room. I went out of the room and listened hard for any telltale noise of where they could be. Apart from the low voices of the seven comrades in the room who were readying themselves, the only other sounds were the whistling of the wind and the swishing of the leaves.

By 4.30 am I was convinced that my flock had flown. To attempt to reinforce my detachment at this hour would be a futile and time-wasting endeavour. I was determined to rejoin my force at Chimoio before or just after sunrise, so I decided to start with my remaining seven comrades. No, not seven but eight, because as we were about to begin our journey, Comrade Batanai Vatema joined us. It was now my turn to feel embarrassed. I had not believed him when he said he could not locate his troops. Now, in his very presence, thirteen of my comrades were nowhere to be found. Comrade Batanai Vatema had been vindicated.

Attack – Day 3

Our way back was a lot faster; our numbers were small and easier to control, we had no sick comrades to care for, just our personal weapons and ammunition. The route was the same one we had used going to Chindunduma and everyone was now familiar with it. At 6.30 am the sun was beginning to rise and we were reaching the outskirts of Chimoio ZANLA Headquarters. In another twenty to thirty minutes we should be at the National Stores and reunited with my troops.

We were fifteen minutes away from our destination when the enemy bombardment resumed. Today, like yesterday, there was expectation and preparedness to receive the unwelcome visitors.

Overnight the commanders had taken stock of their force levels. Some bases, such as Nehanda (women’s base), Kaguvi* (base for the elderly), Parirenyatwa (medical base), Chitepo College (political orientation base) and the transport base were, except for the dead and critically injured, completely deserted. Maybe most of the adult comrades I had seen at Chindunduma, or who constituted part of my fighting force at the National Stores Base, originated from these bases.

Other bases such as the HQ itself (command base), Takawira Base 1 and 2 (training bases), National Stores (food and clothing provisions base) where I had formed an operational headquarters for my newly formed and expanding force, and the National Armoury (base for arms and munitions), whose exact location and force strength was a mystery to the vast majority of the comrades, still had a significant number of troops.

The enemy’s intelligence about our bases was built from information from captured comrades, surreptitious deployment of agents amongst us, and observation and listening posts. The best protection for the National Armoury was its secretiveness. Except for a tiny handful of senior commanders (no one seemed to know which commanders), no one knew where or whether the National Armoury did exist within the area of the ZANLA Headquarters, or maybe the arms and munitions were being secretly brought from some remote location. Because this information was a closely guarded secret, the enemy could not, with all the means and resources at his disposal, build an intelligence picture of where the National Armoury was located.

Sometime during yesterday’s attacks, the enemy had conducted random prodding bombardments (reconnaissance by fire) in areas he suspected the National Armoury to be located, to provoke reaction from troops guarding this most prized objective. If the bombs had come close to hitting the intended target, so far it was not evident because the lack of response from the suspected positions maintained the secrecy and thereby perpetuated the mystery. I was convinced that if the National Armoury did exist in the general area I thought it did, the enemy had not found its location. Had the enemy made the discovery, he would not waste time before destroying and exploding the arsenal. The enemy did not use the Russian or Chinese made rifles, except for a few that were given to the Selous Scouts who posed as comrades. There would be no sense in him preserving any huge stockpiles of our weaponry if they were discovered.

The first waves of bombardment this morning seemed to concentrate in the perceived general area of the National Armoury, and the Headquarters. The thirst the enemy had yesterday to attack the National Stores and the two training bases was quenched by the spirited resistance encountered from our forces.

I was in the process of analysing the pattern of attacks by the enemy today when we reached the National Stores and I re-joined my troops. They were in a heightened state of alert and ready to take on the enemy, should he decide to bomb our base. So far he hadn’t. Comrade Captain Devil quickly briefed me about what had transpired during the evening while I had been away. He had restructured his platoons and sections and addressed all the forces under command to reinforce my message that if the enemy continued his attack we would vigorously and resolutely engage and defeat him. The only unfortunate occurrence of the evening was that shortly after I led the platoon to go to Chindunduma, three comrades had absconded from their positions to go to Chimoio, it was believed. It dawned on me then that the enemy fire I had heard in the evening must have been targeting these three cowards.

Early this morning before the bombardment resumed, Captain Devil had replaced the section that was deployed overnight to intercept comrades trying to escape to Chimoio town or Gondola, and re-directing them to the National Stores. The section brought along with it twenty-five other comrades who had been rounded up during the evening. Except for two comrades who had non-lethal shrapnel wounds, all the other new arrivals were in good health.

I left the welcoming, politicisation and deployment of the new ‘recruits’ in the hands of their battalion commander whose transformation, within a space of just two days, had exceeded my expectations. Had he remained in the battlefield for years, I doubt that he would have been able to reach the level of confidence and bravery that he had acquired in just over forty-eight hours. The verbal therapy (or is it lashing) I had administered, followed by the immediate assignment of greater responsibilities, were instrumental in this metamorphosis.

With the assumption of greater command responsibilities over the control and deployment of our burgeoning force, Captain Devil had given me the time and space to concentrate on a deeper analysis of the overall defence strategy for the ZANLA Headquarters, as opposed to the narrow tactical deployment of the limited forces under direct command. The strategy I was formulating in my mind involved firstly, the need to assess our force strength in all the bases, and secondly, the need to coordinate their defensive and offensive strategies against the enemy.

I was satisfied with my plan. I called Captain Devil and instructed him to send two of his men to each of our bases, except Takawira Base 2. These emissaries were to carry a sealed message to the commanders of the respective bases they went to. They were to hand the sealed messages directly to the base commanders, and wait to receive and bring back sealed responses. I then instructed Captain Devil to give me two comrades to accompany me to Takawira Base 2.

By 1.15 pm I was entering Takawira Base 2, accompanied by my two comrades. There was the remote possibility that the enemy could have overrun the base, but judging by the amount of resistance the previous day, there was a higher probability that the comrades were still in control of the base. Since this morning, the concentration of enemy bombardment had been elsewhere and not against Takawira Base 2 or the National Stores Base, where I had set my operational headquarters. Considering the latter assumption to be the most probable, I decided to enter the base following an open track where we were easily recognisable by the occupants of the base and its perimeter guards. I ordered that we sling our guns behind our backs to show our non-aggressive intentions. To enter the base using the cover of the vegetation could be misinterpreted as an enemy trying to secretly infiltrate.

A shot whistled above our heads. Instinctively we hit the ground and got ready to return the fire. I ordered my comrades not to fire back until I had ascertained whether it was friendly or enemy fire. I was beginning to believe that I had erred in my judgement about the situation in the base when, to my relief, the familiar challenge to identify ourselves boomed out.

“I am Comrade Dragon Patiripakashata and I’m accompanied by two other comrades,” I quickly responded. After a few verbal exchanges the perimeter guards were reassured about our identity and we were allowed to proceed into the base.

I was familiar with the camp and needed no one to direct me to the command post. From a distance of about forty metres I could see that yesterday’s bombardments had failed to destroy the command structures. I was looking around, trying to assess the extent of the damage to the camp, when a familiar voice halted me in my tracks.

“Comrade Dragon, thank God you are alive,” it was the unmistakable voice of my friend, Comrade Edward Pedzisai, the one to whom I had loaned my rifle three days ago. I looked around but he was nowhere to be seen. I was confused. The voice had sounded very close and yet I could not see him. If it had been in the evening I would have blamed the darkness for shielding him. I was about to call his name when just two metres away from me dry grass began to move, revealing beneath it an entrance to some underground structure. Out of the hole emerged Pedzisai.

At his bidding, I followed Pedzisai into the hole, leaving the two comrades who had accompanied me outside. The next few moments I went through the experiences of a deep-sea diver. As the diver leaves the surface of the sea and is swallowed by its fathomless waters, he soon discovers that there is yet another world beneath – a world with its own vegetation, intriguing creatures and sunken treasures.

It was hard to believe what I was seeing, and yet it was very real. Beneath the seemingly dark hole was an amazingly intricate network of well-lighted rooms and passages I had never known existed beneath Takawira Base 2. A wooden sign hung on the passage wall read, ‘Welcome to Takawira Base 3.’ This was no understatement at all. I was led past a room with a written sign, ‘Briefing Room’, and another one saying ‘Guard Room’, before we came to the one that said ‘COMD’, short for commander. Outside the door made of grass leading into the commander’s room, Comrade Edward shouted a password. A comrade from inside responded by challenging the password, to which Edward shouted back an authentication password before the door was opened and we were allowed to enter.

Inside the room Comrade Takawira, whose name was the same as the base he commanded, was seated on his bed made of wooden sticks and dried grass. His bed was separated from the one on the opposite side of the room, and used by his two batmen, by a rectangular table with four chairs, one on each side of the table, made of the same materials as the bed. Both the beds and the chairs were fixed to the ground. The two batmen used the same bed since at any given time when one was asleep the other had to be awake. The two batmen were in the room with their commander, and it was one of them who challenged Comrade Edward’s password and let us into the room.

I knew Comrade Takawira very well. We were both trained at Tembwe in Tete province at the same time. Both of us were also promoted into the officers’ corps as Members of General Staff at the same time. When a few weeks back I was appointed to be the acting Director for Politics, my rank was elevated to just above that of an ordinary Member of General Staff and just below that of a Member of the High Command. Therefore, I was now more senior to Comrade Takawira. When I entered his room, he stood to attention and saluted me. Comrade Takawira was overjoyed to see me and to know that so far I had survived the enemy’s aggression.

“I never knew you had such an elaborate defence strategy for the base,” I remarked, referring to the underground complexes and passages, part of which I had just seen.

“True,” responded Comrade Takawira, “both the design and construction of this defence system was completed long before I took command of the base.” Comrade Takawira then went on to reveal the secret of the base commanders.

“When this piece of land, now Takawira Base 2, was still virgin forest, about three hundred comrades who had completed their training in guerrilla tactics in Tanzania arrived in a ship at the Port of Beira, and were driven in lorries to an undisclosed location during one dark evening. They were to remain at this location for the next four months, isolated from the rest of the world,” Comrade Takawira began explaining.

“During this period, they dug trenches and created an intricate network of complexes and passages within a perimeter of about one and a half kilometres. Using logs, grass and soil, they provided a roof for the structures beneath and made provision for firing positions and emergency exits. When the work was completed, the outside was skilfully camouflaged. When the job was done, all those who had participated in it were whisked away in the dead of night to a forward base to await operational deployment inside Rhodesia. None of them, despite having lived in the base for over four months, could tell its exact location.

“The base remained unoccupied for the next six months, during which time the outside of the underground bunkers had blended well with the local terrain. When the first group of recruits came for training, none knew of the existence of the underground defensive structures. Not even their trainers! The only person to whom the secret was revealed was the base commander. He himself was sworn to never divulge the secret to anyone else, during or after his command of the base, except to the one who succeeded him as base commander. The existence of the underground structures thus became the secret of the base commanders,” Comrade Takawira concluded.

The secret was now out and the bunkers were serving the purpose for which they were constructed. For the next thirty to forty minutes we reviewed the developments of the last thirty six-hours. Even though we had been caught napping by the enemy’s surprise attack on our bases, many of these bases had quickly overcome the initial shock and had fought back, but a few others had either disintegrated or been wiped out. I informed Comrade Takawira of my thinking on how best to defend our bases and end the enemy aggression. I further told him that I had taken the initiative to invite all the base commanders to rendezvous this evening at 7 pm at his base so that we could coordinate our strategy. In anticipation of his agreeing to my proposals I had, in my letters of invitation, spelled out the passwords that would be used for authentication when arriving at Takawira Base 2. I wanted these passwords to be adopted this evening and the perimeter guards to be told to expect the arrival of the base commanders.

It was 3.40 pm when I returned to the National Stores base in the company of my two comrades, satisfied with the outcome of my visit to Takawira Base 2. On hearing of my arrival, Captain Devil came to welcome me back and to brief me on occurrences during my absence.

While we were away, two enemy planes, a minute from each other, came on a bombing mission of the National Stores warehouse. As the lead plane was approaching its target it was greeted by a heavy volley of fire from the comrades, causing the pilot to miss his target. As the plane banked to go back to base, it was trailed by a line of black smoke, confirmation that it had been hit. The second pilot witnessed the fate of the first plane and decided the target was too far and the mission too risky. As his plane was just coming within range of the ground forces and about a hundred metres away from the target, the pilot banked right and retreated.

All but one of the emissaries I had sent with letters for the base commanders had returned. At Kaguvi, Nehanda and Parirenyatwa, except for the dead and mortally injured, these bases were deserted and the emissaries brought back the messages they had been given to deliver. The two emissaries to the Headquarters Base were fired at as they were entering the base. It was not possible to determine whether they were fired at by enemy forces or by our own comrades.

One of the comrades was hit and remained at the spot where he fell, and the other managed to run away back to our base. This comrade could not say whether his colleague had been killed or just injured. Fortunately however, the one who got away was the one who was carrying the letter, and he brought it back with him. If the letter had been with the other comrade there was a possibility that it could have fallen into the hands of the enemy, ruining my arrangements for the evening and necessitating a quick change of plans.

By the time debriefing ended my spirits had already been dampened. My expectations of a grand indaba involving base commanders amounted to almost nothing. Most of our bases had been reduced to zero operational efficiency and the only positive confirmation to my invitation came from the commander of Takawira Base 1.

During the day the enemy had continued pounding selected targets throughout all our bases, but the intensity of the attacks had tapered off in comparison to yesterday. From morning till now there had been three sorties targeting the warehouse. Of these, only one had been on target. It was now 5 pm and in another two hours it would be dark. It seemed most unlikely that our base would be subjected to further bombardment for the remainder of the day. Credit must be given to my forces for their strong resistance each time the enemy attacked our base. They had earned my respect and, it seemed, that of the enemy – respect can be another form of fear.

At about 5.20 pm, I instructed Captain Devil to have a section ready to accompany me to Takawira Base 2. According to my plan the base commanders were to rendezvous there at 7 pm. I calculated that if we left our Op. HQ at 6 pm it would take us about forty-five minutes to reach Takawira Base 2.

The enemy had plans of his own. At 5.30 pm there was a roar like thunder in the sky that took every one of us completely by surprise. The enemy unleashed ferocious and simultaneous attacks on all our bases as wave after wave of planes bombarded our positions. Convinced the incessant bombardment had neutralised our resistance, the enemy brought in low flying helicopters with their mounted guns blazing at our positions. But my forces fought back doggedly against this formidable foe. I moved from position to position amongst my troops, motivating them to fight hard. So far we had suffered three fatalities and about a dozen injuries, none of them life threatening.

As suddenly as they had arrived, the planes withdrew from the battle area at 6.30 pm. A few bullets from the ground followed them as if to ensure they were driven out of our airspace. Moments later there was absolute silence in all our bases. At least for today, there would be no further enemy bombardments.

We finished counting our costs around 8 pm and immediately after I set out for Takawira Base 2, accompanied by my section. We arrived there about two hours late, just before 9 pm. As I suspected, no other base commander, including the one from Takawira Base 1 who had confirmed he was going to come, had arrived. We waited until 10 pm in the faint hope there would be a late arrival, but no one came. Together with the commander of Takawira Base 2 we then mapped out a common strategy of defence. I explained my theory that the enemy wanted to find and destroy our National Armoury. This should not be allowed to happen at any cost. Our overall strategy centred on how to position our force, command and control of such a force and its reinforcement, in the event that such a threat became a reality.

Satisfied that we had made contingency plans for every conceivable scenario, I left Takawira Base 2 and rejoined my forces at the National Stores at 1.30 a.m.

Burials – Day 1

Saturday, November 26, I woke up at 5 am after three hours sleep. Sleep deprivation was beginning to take its toll on me, as it did the rest of my embattled comrades. With a bit of effort and a sense of responsibility, I overcame the urge to go on sleeping. It was possible and most likely that in as little as three hours from now the enemy would resume his bombardment of our positions. I needed to make sure the comrades were awake and alert so as to repel the onslaught when it began.

I walked to where I knew Captain Devil would be sleeping. He was snoring heavily in his sleep. Were I an enemy, I would have detected his presence and exact location from twenty metres away. Other comrades who slept close to him were also in deep slumber, apparently unperturbed by the snoring, as if it was a lullaby that soothed them.

I stooped down beside Captain Devil, gently nudged his left shoulder and softly called out, “Captain Devil, wake up.” The snoring stopped and a wide grin spread across his face, but he remained asleep. I nudged him again, this time a little harder, “Captain Devil, Captain Devil, please wake up.” The grin left his face and, still in his sleep, he mumbled some incomprehensible words. I began losing my patience and this time shoved him hard and raised my voice, “Wake up Captain Devil!”

His senses began journeying back to the world of the living, and his natural instinct was to go for his gun. In war, many survive by reacting to their instincts rather than to logic. Captain Devil was a firm believer in the doctrine of instinctive survival. He thrust out his right hand to retrieve his gun where he had laid it before going to sleep, close to the pillow. Somehow the barrel felt thicker and the gun seemed stuck to the ground. Instinct overruled logic and in his dreamy stupor he jerked free his gun! “What the hell are you doing pulling my ankle like that you…,” I screamed at him as I lost my balance and fell over him. Now wide-awake, Captain Devil was very apologetic, “I am very sorry Comrade Dragon; I thought I was pulling at my gun.”

I ordered Captain Devil to dress quickly so that we could inspect the readiness of our forces. First, we inspected the perimeter sentry posts. There were fourteen positions, each with two comrades. Except for two positions, all the other guards were asleep on duty. What this meant is that it was theoretically possible for the enemy to occupy our base without firing a shot. For all the talk about vigilance and being alert, the reality on the ground had a sobering effect. I laid the blame for this gross dereliction of duty on the guards on duty and the commanders who were supposed to conduct regular inspections of the guard positions. They too had slept on duty. I dressed down both the commanders and the commanded in proportion to their rank and accountability.

After completing the perimeter inspections we woke up all the comrades in the base and made them ready for what I believed was an imminent continuation of the attack. By 7 am all the comrades under my command were psychologically prepared and motivated to repel any enemy aggression.

Uncharacteristically, by 9 am the enemy had not resumed his bombardment. This I considered to be a ruse to make us relax our vigilance before mounting an attack when we were off guard. Ten o’clock, still no attack. Could this mean the attacks had ended? Inconceivable! Yesterday afternoon had seen some of the heaviest bombardment by the enemy since the battle for Chimoio began, giving credence to my theory that the enemy would try to parachute ground troops to mop up pockets of resistance as well as seek and destroy our National Armoury, if indeed it existed. The resistance by our comrades had been more ferocious and better coordinated than in the previous days. Radio communications between our fighting units had been established and we had worked out a strategy for reinforcing our weak positions if the need arose. November 25 had proved a turning point in our fortunes. However, I still remained convinced that the real battle for Chimoio would begin when we engaged enemy ground forces. We had made plans for this eventuality and I would command such an operation when it began.

Time now was 10.45 am. There still was no sign of enemy activity in the air or on the ground. It suddenly occurred to me that during the past three days, no one amongst us had listened to the enemy radio station (Rhodesia Broadcasting Corporation) to hear how they reported the ongoing operations against our bases. I told Captain Devil to find me a radio. It took him about twenty minutes to bring one to me and when I switched it on it was tuned to a music station. All the comrades within earshot threw puzzled glances in the direction of the sound. Any strange noises had come to be associated with the enemy and in the prevailing circumstances, the noise from the radio was considered strange. It was no wonder the puzzled faces of the comrades reflected a mixture of confusion, trepidation and admonition. None of these expressions affected my resolve to tune in to a news station.

I got it just as the news bulletin was winding up. “To end the news here now are the headlines,” the newscaster said. The same ending that I had heard since I was a kid. Can’t these people come up with something original? I thought to myself. When you hate a system, you hate everything that makes it tick. That’s how I felt as I listened to the monotonous voice of the newscaster. “The Joint Operations Command issued a statement late last night announcing the successful completion of Operation Dingo,” continued the newscaster. “The operation targeting Chimoio, Mugabe’s terrorist headquarters in Mozambique, dealt a fatal blow to the movement, and killed thousands of terrorists, amongst them some senior commanders….” I was fascinated by the golden quality of the newscaster’s voice. Despite the lies behind the message, the newscaster had a soothing and captivating voice, contrasting with the previous monotone. Just then the significance of what had been said hit me; the battle was over!

I wanted to share immediately the good news with my comrades, starting with those who were closest to me. I looked for the many puzzled faces that a while ago were a mixture of confusion, trepidation and admonition. Only a few remained, but their faces were beaming with joy. I knew the cat was out of the bag and the faces that had vanished had taken the news with them to the rest of the comrades in the base.

I began to weigh the significance of the news. My immediate conclusion was that what I had heard over the radio was pleasing and disappointing at the same time. Pleasing because the death and destruction that was visited upon us during the last three days had finally come to an end. We now had the opportunity to attend to our injured, and the gruesome task of burying our dead. Disappointing because the real battle for Chimoio had ended before it began. The showdown I had hoped for with the Rhodesian infantry had melted away, and with it the immediate opportunity to avenge the deaths of Kelvin, Daniel, and all the comrades who had perished here at Chimoio, at Nyadzonya, at Tembwe, at all the battlefields in Rhodesia and in the countries which provided us with rear bases. The anguish and the persecution of our masses back home had not been atoned for, but were instead multiplied by the deaths here of their children who had selflessly paid the supreme sacrifice for the cause of freedom. Not their individual freedom, but the freedom of all the oppressed masses in Rhodesia, and the birth of a free Zimbabwe.

The communications we had established to coordinate our fighting strategy I now used to announce the cessation of hostilities; and even more importantly, to direct and guide our next phase of operations, caring for the sick and injured and burial of the dead. No one had thought exactly how this task would be performed because no one expected the fighting to end so suddenly or to be alive when it did.

I took charge of the situation and began issuing instructions. My immediate priority was to organise search and burial parties. The search parties were to look for the injured and bring them to a hastily set up medical transit point where first aid would be administered before they could be transferred to proper medical facilities in Chimoio town or Gondola. In the meantime, we dispatched some officers to go to Chimoio to negotiate with Mozambican authorities for the provision of ambulances and other vehicles to ferry our injured.

I did not understand why the Mozambican forces had failed to come to our aid during the three-day ordeal. A senior officer who commanded the FRELIMO garrison in Chimoio at the time offered the explanation, long after Zimbabwe’s independence, that he had been ordered to fire artillery shells into our bases to help in repulsing the enemy, but ignored that order because inadvertently those shells could have caused casualties amongst the comrades. While that explanation sounds plausible, it does not explain why they did not fire at Rhodesian planes overflying their airspace.

I was no stranger to death or dead bodies. I do not mean the casual attendance at a funeral and the subsequent viewing of the deceased from a safe distance, lying in a coffin in eternal sleep, with the physical features rearranged to present as peaceful an appearance as is humanly possible. No! I had on numerous occasions seen the ugly face of death in its raw and unsculptured form.

When I was about 12 years old I had developed a habit of spending some hours with my father, a nurse by profession, when he was on night duty at a district hospital. On one such evening, around 11 pm, I was about to ask my father to walk me to our house situated approximately 300 metres away, when the main entrance door was flung open. A man drenched in blood stumbled into the hospital and advanced towards me and my father. An axe was sunk into his forehead and its blade cut across his face, just missing the left eye, bisecting the nose in two, and ending just above the upper lip. The wooden axe handle, like an abnormally long nose, jutted in front of him and his left arm formed the bridge holding it firmly in position. I doubted that even without the support of the hand, the axe could have fallen off as it seemed firmly anchored in his face. The plausible reason for holding the axe handle was to reduce the pain caused by the downward pull. My father ran to aid his patient but before he could reach him, the man fell and died. I had remained rooted where I had stood with my father. This experience had proved too much for a twelve-year-old. When the patient collapsed and died, I puked and fainted.

As I grew older my experiences and abilities to cope with similar or worse situations also increased. I could look a dead man or woman in the face without showing outward emotions, unless he or she was a close relative or a dear friend. On a number of occasions I assisted my father in carrying dead patients to the mortuary, un-affected by the stench of death and the cold eeriness of the room, and unaffected too by the lack of life and expression on the faces of its other occupants. In my mind I was able to differentiate the feelings towards a dead stranger and those towards a relative or friend. A stranger’s death evoked in me, not pain, but sympathetic feelings of sadness, not for the deceased, but for the pain and anguish the death caused to the living friends and relatives. A dead relative or friend, on the other hand, evoked pain and a deep sense of loss proportionate to the degree of closeness we shared in life.

A few months before I crossed into Mozambique to join the armed liberation struggle, I was witness to a horrific traffic accident. I was driving on Christmas Eve from Fort Victoria to Nuanetsi where I worked as the Executive Secretary for Neshuro Council. After driving for eighty-four kilometres, I decided to take a short rest and drink a Coke at a service centre just off the highway. A lot of people had alighted from a bus and were buying beers and other food items from the service centre. It was obvious to me that most of the passengers were from the city and were going to their rural homes to spend the Christmas holiday with their families.

Zimbabwe is predominantly a Christian nation and Christmas is the most revered holiday on the Christian calendar. The 25th of December is celebrated by family reunions, religious congregations and, most importantly, lots of wining and dining which usually stretches into the New Year, 1 January.

Around 11 am I watched the passengers in their merriment and it was obvious the carnival atmosphere of the occasion had begun. The driver, a quart of beer in each hand, was the first to re-board the bus. He sat behind the steering wheel and placed his beers underneath his seat so that they could not be easily detected if the traffic police stopped the bus – a familiar routine it seemed. He started and revved the engine, and hooted intermittently to alert his passengers that it was now time to go. On the highway another bus went past, driving in the same direction. The driver realized that unless he took off now and overtook the other bus he would have no additional passengers for the remainder of the journey. Thus the driver started moving the bus slowly and in jerks, again a familiar signal to his passengers that anyone who did not board the bus now risked being left behind.

Most of the passengers with beers and items of grocery for their families at home jostled and had a tough tussle to get into the bus first. A few others were shouting to the cashiers to give them their change and did not heed the familiar signals from the driver. With most of the passengers now in the bus, the conductor banged three or four times on the side of the bus to signal to the driver that every passenger had boarded. As the bus picked up pace, the conductor, one hand holding two beer pints and the other the bus railing at the door, hoisted himself into the bus and closed the door, ignoring the screams of three passengers who had been left behind and were making a fruitless chase to catch the bus or attract the attention of the driver in order to stop. Little did they realize then that in their misfortune lay their luck.

When they were resigned to their fate, I came to their aid. I told them to jump into the back of my Mazda pickup and I would help them catch up with their bus. I had underestimated the speed of the bus. Travelling between 120 and 140 kilometres per hour, it took me almost twenty minutes to catch up with the bus. Driving behind it I kept flicking my lights on and off to attract the attention of the driver to stop, but to no avail. Through the rear window of the bus I could see the passengers singing, dancing and drinking beer, and I was convinced some were urging the driver to go faster. The driver rose to the occasion, much to the delight of his passengers. On two or three occasions I tried to overtake the bus but decided it was dangerous to do so as it kept straddling the middle of the road. I decided to wait until it stopped to pick up or drop off some passengers.

The bus was approaching a sharp bend but still maintaining its high speed. I was trailing it at a safe distance of about forty to fifty metres. From the other direction, a lorry loaded with bags of corn and with about ten passengers sitting on top of them was approaching. The bus driver seemed not to be aware of the danger until it was too late. He panicked and tried to avoid collision with the lorry. The bus swerved to the right of the road, then to the left and was going again to the right when the collision occurred. The transition from joyous singing to panicky screams amongst the passengers lasted a fraction of a minute, and then there was the silence of the dead and the groans of pain of the injured. The only unaffected people at the scene were the three passengers and I – and the passengers kept repeating their gratitude to their ancestors for taking them out of the ill-fated bus.

The gruesome carnage spread before me was almost indescribable. You needed to have witnessed the accident to be convinced that the rusted and mangled remains we were looking at were the aftermath of the collision between the bus and lorry. Now they lay twenty metres apart, neither able now to challenge the other. Any humans still trapped in their bellies had their lives extinguished. If there was any hope of finding survivors it was among those the two metal monsters had coughed out in the process of collision.

Bodies and body parts were strewn all over a wide area. Our immediate priority was to render first aid to the injured. It seemed the number of those killed surpassed those who survived, many of whom were barely hanging on to life. Amongst the injured, many had deep grisly cuts on different parts of their bodies – broken bones and detached limbs, dislocations, gushes, bruises and swellings. Some moaned with pain and others had sunk into unconsciousness. Thirty minutes from the time the accident occurred, the number of rescuers and search parties had significantly multiplied as other passing motorists and locals arrived to help. Someone must have had the wisdom to contact the Police, Ambulance Service and the Fire Brigade, something I had overlooked in my haste to save what lives I could.

The Fire Brigade was cutting into the mangled remains of the bus and lorry in search of any signs of life, and later to recover bodies. The Ambulance Service was expertly and efficiently attending to the injured and covering and protecting the dead bodies. The Police wasted no time in recording statements of eyewitnesses. It was not until 5 pm that I was able to leave the scene of the accident. I carried with me deep feelings of sadness for the senseless loss of so many lives through an accident that could have been avoided. According to the Police, as many as 39 people perished at the scene of the accident.

Memories of these past experiences flashed back as I now began the unenviable task of attending to the injured and the burying of my dead comrades. Pain and deep sorrow combined and created a new dimension to my philosophy of pain for the relatives and close friends, and sorrow for strangers. The revolutionary struggle had bonded us into a relationship much stronger than that of relatives or close friends, a relationship in which none was a stranger to another. In their relief that the battle for Chimoio had ended, the surviving comrades nonetheless felt excruciating pain over the loss of ‘blood brothers and sisters’ who sacrificed their lives for the cause of freedom.

To this day, I cannot comprehend fully or describe succinctly the metaphysical transformation that took place inside me as I viewed the horrific images of my dead and injured comrades. I knew my dear departed comrades could no longer feel pain. The enemy fire had succeeded in extinguishing the flame of life that for years had lit the now inert bodies and, in the process and unintentionally, extinguished the pain and suffering that years of colonial subjugation had visited upon them. What the enemy could not succeed in doing was to destroy the revolutionary spirit that these bodies had been home to.

As I psychologically braced myself for the task of laying the dead to rest, my mind began to see not dead bodies, but the most beautiful and high quality seeds about to be sown in the ground so they could regenerate and multiply. I saw not death, but a new beginning. I felt no fear or hopelessness, but a stronger sense of hope and fulfilment. I closed my mind’s eye to the pain and anguish that surrounded me. The pain and anguish of the living, for the dead had been spared such pain by the enemy’s bullet. Like the lifeless bodies of my comrades spread before my eyes, I too refused to embrace the fear and suffering that surrounded me. I saw only the courage of my fallen heroes and the purity of their convictions.

The comrades who for three and a half days had their operational command post located at the National Stores and were under my direct command were now to have their role transformed, becoming the nucleus of our next phase of operations – the search and recovery of our injured and dead. Even as it became clear that the battle had ended, many of the surviving comrades continued to flee to the relative safety of Chindunduma, convinced that the pause in the fight was a deceptive lull before hostilities would resume.

I assumed overall charge of the search and recovery phase and ordered Captain Devil to assemble all the troops. By the time they were all assembled I had worked out how I wanted this phase of operations to proceed. In my address to the assembled comrades, I briefly thanked them for their valour in confronting the enemy. While I believed that the enemy had suffered losses and was not likely to resume the fight, we still had to maintain vigilance and be prepared to engage the enemy should he decide to resume his aggression.

The essential element of my strategy involved safeguarding the National Stores to deny the enemy any possibility of destroying or poisoning our food supplies, or inserting doctored supplies amongst our stocks. This task I assigned to a thirty-man platoon under the command of Captain Devil. Secondly, I wanted the bulk of my force to concentrate on search and recovery efforts. All injured comrades were to be quickly evacuated to a transit medical point to be immediately established. The prioritisation of treatment, or further evacuation to centres with more advanced facilities, would be determined at this transit point.

Concurrently, the burials of the dead were to be conducted expeditiously as the hot and humid conditions would cause their bodies to decompose quickly. The comrades given this second assignment were broken into sections and each section given a specific area of responsibility for its search and recovery mission. The searches were to be conducted methodically to ensure that no injured comrade was left behind and all the dead were located and buried. Except for Takawira Base 2, which I was positive had survived the enemy’s onslaught largely unscathed; I wanted every one of our bases to be reached by at least a section or two during the first day of our search and recovery efforts. That turned out to be wishful thinking.

All the search parties were under strict instructions not to eat any food except that provided from the National Stores. Before leaving for their separate but similar missions, the sections were to take food rations with them, and when they returned towards dusk, they would have their evening meals. Additional to their personal weapons, each section had two picks, two shovels and two stretchers constructed using bed sheets or blankets and wooden poles.

I appointed Comrade Mao to be in overall charge of the search and recovery operations. During the time I was a military instructor at Takawira Base 2, Mao was my assistant instructor. Early in the morning when it became clear that hostilities had ended, I had requested the commander at Takawira Base 2 to assign five competent commanders to come under my command, and Comrade Mao was one of them. The other four oversaw the operations of sections assigned to them and were answerable to Comrade Mao. Any significant discoveries were to be reported to Comrade Mao, who in turn would use his discretion about when to bring them to my attention.

Four days ago, before the enemy attacked our headquarters Chimoio was a hive of activity. Each one of its constituent bases had at least four vehicles. We even had four buses providing shuttle services between bases. While some of our vehicles were donated to our organisation, the majority of them, including all the buses, were commandeered from operational areas in Rhodesia. Out of the 14 satellite bases the most popular destination for the buses was Mbuya Nehanda Base – a females-only base. Saturdays and Sundays were generally considered resting days and no training or serious programmes were organised during weekends. Weekends thus provided the opportunity for comrades to pay visits to friends in other bases. Our bases, together, provided a modicum of city life.

Most of our transport had been destroyed during the last three days. I was relieved to learn that a Land Rover and a three-tonne truck, both in good working condition, had survived at Takawira Base 2. I negotiated for the truck to be based at the National Stores, mainly for casualty evacuation.

Right now, I wished I was at the HQ. My motivation for this was not only the simple fact that it was the nerve centre of our operations, but also a desire to dispel once and for all the nagging feeling, or rather the persistent fear, that Comrade Tongogara might have been at that location when the enemy bombardments began just over three days ago.

Accompanied by a section of nine men, I set out for the HQ. We followed the wide dirt road that linked the National Stores to the HQ and beyond. Having covered about half a kilometre, we passed one of the sections I had set up for the search and recovery effort. Four of its members were swinging their pickaxes furiously into the stubborn ground beneath, while the rest were awaiting their turn to relieve them should they run out of steam. The summer rains that normally started falling in mid-October had delayed, and the intense summer heat had scorched and cracked the ground beneath turning it into an almost impenetrable shield. Only the desire to provide their dead comrades with a decent burial kept the section’s spirits high against the seemingly unyielding adversary. Under these circumstances, the section settled for one-metre deep graves instead of the standard two metres.

Along the three-kilometre stretch separating the National Stores from the HQ, we saw about a dozen dead bodies lying in the middle of the road. Sooner or later the advancing search and recovery sections would reach them and accord them as dignified a burial as was feasible under the circumstances.

It was about 2 pm when we entered the HQ. The comrades who had constituted the perimeter guard for the HQ had reconstituted themselves into search parties for the injured and dead. This base had been my home for the past eight months. Early in the morning, three and a half days ago, I had left this base for the National Stores with Kelvin by my side. Thoughts about Kelvin connected me to the dream. The dream connected me to that fateful day when the attack began. That in turn brought recollections of my seeing Comrade Tongogara’s car as I left for the National Stores. So many recollections came rushing back into my mind with such rapidity that I became confused as to what was real and what was imagination. Was it real that Comrade Tongogara’s car was in the base on the day of the attack? If it was, did he come in his car or had he just sent his driver with it? There were so many questions for which I had no answers.

Suddenly it dawned on me that those comrades standing in a circle about eighty metres from where we were might hold the answers to my questions. I knew them all by their names. On numerous occasions I assigned them guard duties, gave them political lessons, and many other tasks. Danger Chimurenga was their commander. As we drew closer, I noticed that comrades Hondo and Bazooka were putting the final touches to a mound of earth. The rest of the comrades stood in solemn silence around the mound, and although I could not hear what he was saying, Comrade Danger Chimurenga seemed to be speaking not to the men under his command but to the mound. Dear Lord, they had just finished burying a comrade, maybe Comrade Tongogara! My pace quickened and the comrades who accompanied me had difficulty keeping up. Their task accomplished, the comrades were beginning to drift from the grave when Comrade Danger Chimurenga saw me coming.

“Comrades, Attention! Stand at ease! Attention! Welcome Comrade Dragon,” saluted Comrade Danger Chimurenga.

“Stand at ease!” I responded.

There was obvious relief on the faces of the comrades that I was still alive. After the three-day onslaught by the Rhodesian rebel forces you could not be sure who had survived until you actually saw someone moving. I too was relieved to see the familiar faces of the comrades, who during the last eight months I had been with at the HQ when they carried out guard duties and made me and other comrades sleep well in the full confidence that we were protected.

I wasted no time in getting to the point. “Danger, was Comrade Tongogara here when the attack began three days ago?”

“Yes Comrade Dragon, he was here.” My heart sank. I feared asking the next question lest it should confirm my worst fears.

“Where is he now?” My heart was pounding with fright.

“We carried him to Chimoio town.”

Tongogara was a strong-willed man. No illness could make him lie down. Even when he was involved in a serious car accident in which a senior member of ZANLA was killed, the serious injuries he sustained could not keep him in bed. He was courageous, strong-willed and of indomitable spirit. If he was carried to Chimoio town, it meant he was not able to walk on his own. If he was not able to walk on his own, that might imply that he had very severe injuries, maybe he had lost his legs.

“Couldn’t he walk on his own?”

“No he could not.” Comrade Danger’s answers were short and to the point.

About three months ago I severely cautioned Comrade Danger to answer exactly what he was asked. He was unnecessarily superfluous in his answers. If you asked him “What is the name of your father?” he would answer, “My father is Alexander and my mother Christina.” If you enquired, “Has the doctor arrived?” he would respond, “No he has not. Last year when we called him to come, he came late too.”

From the way he was responding to my questions now, it was clear he had taken my criticism seriously. Except, of course, today I wanted Comrade Danger to anticipate my questions and answer them even before I asked. His short and precise answers had become an irritant. I wanted to know if Comrade Tongogara was still alive, if so, the extent of his injuries, etc. etc.

“Listen you son of a …,” I swallowed the last word. In strict observance of our guerrilla teachings, it was as much a cardinal sin to swear at a comrade as it was to point a gun at someone, even a wooden imitation, unless you were aiming or firing at an enemy. “I want you to explain everything the way it happened. No additions, no subtractions, no rearrangement of the events. Every detail in the sequence as it occurred.”

It was as if explaining events in a chronological and detailed manner would change the already achieved outcome and make it more palatable. What an illogical reasoning! God damn it, no recourse to logic was ever desired where Comrade Tongogara was concerned. ‘Calm down, calm down, give Danger Chimurenga a chance to tell what happened,’ an inner voice deep inside me seemed to say. I calmed down.

“Okay now, Comrade Danger let’s hear what you have to say,” I prompted him.

“The night before the attack began, I was in Chimoio town,” began Comrade Danger.

“I don’t care where you were,” I interrupted him, “just tell me what happened to Comrade Tongo, not you.” The comrades were taken aback by my outburst. It was very uncharacteristic of the Comrade Dragon they had known and lived with for some time.

“I had been trying for hours to hitch a ride to the HQ but without success,” Danger Chimurenga ignored my outburst and continued with his narration of events. “Just as I was about to give up and call it a day, Comrade Tongogara’s car pulled in to refuel at our refuelling base in Chimoio town.” At the mention of Comrade Tongo’s name, my interest in what Comrade Danger was saying was re-ignited. “That was around 2 am,” Danger said thoughtfully.

“Was Comrade Tongogara in his car?”

Again Danger resisted being stampeded. “The lighting conditions were poor and I could not tell whether there were any passengers in Comrade Tongo’s car. As the driver was refuelling the car, I went around to the other side to see if there was anyone on the passenger seat. I pressed my face to the window and peered into the car.” Comrade Danger Chimurenga broke off as an uncontrollable cough took hold of him. I did not know whether to punch or sympathise with him. Was the cough genuine or dramatised for effect?

When finally the cough was controlled, Comrade Danger continued, “Comrade Tongo was staring straight at me. I lost my composure, jumped back two or three steps and saluted him.”

Anyone who knew Comrade Tongogara in the latter days of his life will testify that his most distinguishing characteristics were his eyes and his teeth. Comrade Tongo had a piercing and multi-focal gaze. When he was addressing rallies, comrades seated far apart from each other would feel that piercing gaze, with each and everyone vowing that he or she was Comrade Tongo’s target at that same time. His teeth had a peculiarity of their own. Whether he was speaking, eating, sleeping or doing nothing, his upper and lower teeth would grind against each other, producing a distinctive sound. Another equally important characteristic of Comrade Tongo was that he was an engaging personality. He knew the appropriate things to say and when to say them for any type of audience.

“You thought since the driver is refuelling from that side, you would sneak to this side and steal the car while he was distracted?” Comrade Tongogara quipped. “Unfortunately for you, the driver is clever; he left me behind to guard the car.”

“I laughed my lungs out at the humour in his words. Comrade Tongogara had broken the ice and the uneasiness that had gripped me when my eyes met his,” Comrade Danger continued. “By the time the driver finished refuelling, I was seated comfortably in Comrade Tongogara’s car, laughing at his jokes and waiting for the driver to take us to Comrade Tongogara’s next destination – the HQ.”

How could fate be so cruel as to bring Comrade Tongo to the HQ on this cursed day? Could it be that the enemy was aware that he would be at the HQ when the attack began? If that was the case, was there an enemy informer among us who communicated his every movement? Could it be his driver? His batman? A member of the Politburo, High Command, General Staff? Or just an inconspicuous individual in our midst? Or was it mere coincidence that he happened to come on a date pre-planned for attack? Maybe there was some truth about Murphy’s Law – ‘if anything can go wrong, one day it will.’ So many thoughts raced through my mind, and none seemed to make any sense.

“It must have been around 4 am when we arrived at the HQ. Except for the guards who stopped us at the checkpoint on the entrance to the HQ, there was no sign of life in the base – no lights, in conformity with our evening procedures, and an eerie quietness since everyone was asleep. On seeing Comrade Tongogara, the guards did not bother to inspect the interior of the vehicle as was expected of them, but instead lifted the wooden boom and let us through. As soon as I alighted, I thanked Comrade Tongogara for transporting me, saluted and wished him a good evening.”

Comrade Danger Chimurenga was indeed giving every detail as I had instructed, but to my annoyance. (That’s why my batmen had not mentioned Comrade Tongogara being in the base – they were fast asleep when he arrived.)

“Say ‘Have a good morning’,” Comrade Tongogara had quipped, “It’s almost time to wake up.”

“I wasted no time in going to sleep. I was so tired I wanted to make use of every remaining minute of the evening.”

Danger made a long pause as if talking about sleep had actually sent him to sleep again.

“You may wake up now and continue with your story,” I prompted Comrade Danger, “and you”, I said, turning to the comrades who had been working with Comrade Danger, “this story is of no interest to you. Continue searching for the injured and dead comrades, any delays might cost the lives of more comrades.”

“I overslept and was woken up by the sound of bombs exploding,” Comrade Danger continued. “I grabbed my gun and managed to join the comrades at the nearest guard position. Personally, I did not see Comrade Tongo the whole day, but was getting reports that he was moving from one guard position to another, fighting with and motivating the comrades to engage the enemy,” Comrade Danger went on.

This was consistent with Comrade Tongo’s character – a motivating and resilient personality. Indeed, the combination of natural intelligence and bravery made him a deserving and most suitable choice for the position he held within the guerrilla army – the Chief of Defence of the ZANLA forces.

“The last time Comrade Tongo was reported at a guard position was around 3.30 pm. This coincided with the time the enemy tactics over our base changed and for the first time they started to employ helicopters. Judging from experience, we deduced that the enemy had either deployed ground troops and was giving them cover through the use of helicopters, or that he wanted to test our resistance before he could decide whether to insert ground forces, or worse still, that he had observed a high value target that he wanted to snatch.”

The assumptions stated by Comrade Danger made a lot of sense, especially the last one. Had I not been told at the beginning that Comrade Tongo was carried to Chimoio town, I would have been completely devastated by the thought that Comrade Tongogara was probably in the hands of the enemy.

If due to the intensity of the resistance the enemy had been denied the opportunity to snatch Comrade Tongogara, they probably caused him such injuries that he was not able to walk on his own. This might explain why Comrade Tongogara had to be carried to Chimoio town. All these thoughts flashed through my mind in a fraction of a second.

“I ordered the comrades to intensify their fire against the enemy in order to frustrate any intention they might have to deploy ground forces, or extricate them if they had already been deployed.” Comrade Danger seemed to have been reading my thoughts.

“Until dusk, no further sighting of Comrade Tongogara had been reported. As the enveloping darkness denied the enemy the capability of flying, I immediately ordered all the comrades to search for Comrade Tongogara and any other injured comrades. An agonising thirty minutes passed without him being found. Forty minutes later, still no whereabouts of Comrade Tongogara. Four injured comrades had been located and were being prepared for evacuation. An hour after I ordered the search, I was becoming convinced that Comrade Tongogara had been snatched when one section animatedly announced that they had located him. I enquired if he was alive, and was relieved to hear that he was alive and able to speak.”

I felt the relief which Comrade Danger must have felt when he got the good news.

“I then asked whether he had any injuries,” continued Comrade Danger, “and was told that although he appeared not to have any injuries, he was insisting that he had lost both his legs. It did not make any sense at all to me, and I further enquired whether in their view he had lost his senses. Their response was that he appeared perfectly sane except for the ludicrous claim. I told the comrades to prepare him for evacuation and wait for my arrival at their position. When I got to the position, I spoke to Comrade Tongogara. He had no visible injuries, he felt no pain, but could not feel his legs.”

The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that it was not mere coincidence that the attack took place on the day Comrade Tongogara came to the Headquarters. I wondered also, whether the enemy knew then how close he was to capturing the strategist and the driving engine of our liberation struggle.

Comrade Danger Chimurenga concluded his narration of events by explaining how he had personally accompanied Comrade Tongogara, carried on a stretcher, to Chimoio town. At Chimoio he was admitted to a military hospital and provided with a twenty-four hour guard. The following evening, after the evening pause in bombardments, Comrade Danger had sent some comrades to Chimoio town to get a progress report on Comrade Tongogara’s condition. Comrade Tongogara had regained his sense of feeling and was on the road to full recovery.

Amidst the death, agony and misery that surrounded me, I found some comfort in the knowledge that Comrade Tongogara had survived the enemy’s assault largely unscathed. For Comrade Tongo, it would be difficult to overcome the emotional scars arising from the fact that we were not adequately prepared to defend our flagship – ZANLA Headquarters.

I was still trying to get every bit of information about Comrade Tongogara’s ordeal when we heard a sound. Believing it could yet again be approaching enemy planes, we adopted a fighting formation. A cloud of dust along the dirt road leading to the HQ soon confirmed the source of the sound. There were three vehicles driving towards the HQ. In the lead was a van and it drove to the damaged building where Comrade Tongogara always parked his car whenever he came to the HQ. The van had tinted windows that made it difficult to see who or what was inside. Before the lead vehicle came to a complete standstill, the heavily armed soldiers in a Toyota pick-up trailing immediately behind the van – about a dozen of them – jumped out of their truck while it was still in motion and quickly deployed around the lead civilian vehicle. Behind the pick-up, another van was also coming to a halt. Evidently, the soldiers were an escort for a senior official or officials in the lead van. For a little while the occupants of both the lead and rear vans remained in their vehicles.

The lessons of Nyadzonya were still fresh and vivid in our minds. Could these be Rhodesians disguised as FRELIMO soldiers? Why were the occupants of the two vans taking their time to alight? This line of thinking was not helpful at all except to induce fear. I refused to be a captive of fear and boldly stepped out of our concealed position, accompanied by only six other comrades, determined to confront the FRELIMO soldiers.

As we drew close to the lead vehicle and before we could accost the soldiers, the rear door of the lead vehicle swung open and out came Comrade Tongogara. Incredulity and disbelief took hold of my emotions. Was this real or was I seeing an apparition? But yes indeed, it was Comrade Tongo, with all his distinguishing characteristics. Without a second thought I dashed towards him.

“Comrade Tongo, is this really you?” I bubbled with great excitement as I reached Comrade Tongogara, arms outstretched to hug him. Comrade Tongogara reciprocated the gesture and with his usual humour responded, “Sure as the sun rising from the east and setting in the west. Come and hold my hands to confirm it.” (Analogous to the challenge Jesus Christ made to his disciples to prove his identity by inspecting the holes in his hands after he had been nailed to the cross.)

Together with other comrades we congregated around Comrade Tongogara like moths attracted to a light bulb. In the midst of the death, anguish and destruction that surrounded us, knowledge that Comrade Tongogara had survived the attack unleashed upon us by the Smith regime was cause for celebration.

We were in this celebratory mood when a second rear door of the lead van opened and out came an unfamiliar figure. The attention of all the comrades suspiciously shifted from Comrade Tongogara to the stranger. Comrade Tongogara noticed our apprehension and quickly dispelled our fears by introducing the stranger. “Meet the Mozambican Minister of Internal Affairs, Comrade Armando Emilio Guebuza.” This was the first senior official of the Mozambican government to visit Chimoio Headquarters after the attack. We did not know then that this humble looking man before us was destined to become the third President of the Republic of Mozambique (after Presidents Samora Moises Machel and Joaquim Alberto Chissano).

The disembarkation of Comrade Guebuza from the lead van appeared to have been the signal awaited by the occupants of the rear van to alight. Armed with cameras, some began shooting pictures while others armed with pens and paper were scribbling away furiously. Comrade Tongogara became the main focus of attention for both the journalists and our comrades as he narrated the events of the past few days. He had such skill in narrating events that he kept his audience captivated and thirsty to hear more. Even for us who had lived through the experiences of these last few days, hearing them narrated from the mouth of Comrade Tongogara gave them uniqueness and flavour that kept all of us riveted as if to the pages of a very interesting novel.

We had been following Comrade Tongogara wherever his feet chose to take him. He was the pied piper and we were all dancing to his tune. The occasional interruptions to his narration only came from journalists whose instincts for sensationalism sought to redirect or refocus his narration. The first interruption from one of our comrades came as we were passing one of the latrines and a comrade who had gone to urinate in the latrine excitedly drew the attention of Comrade Tongogara to a faint female voice coming from beneath the latrine and calling his name.

All attention shifted to the toilet. Comrade Tongo’s natural leadership skills were once again demonstrated as he took charge of the rescue operation.

The toilet was almost three metres deep. The surface was covered with wooden poles, grass filled the gaps created by the crooked poles, and soil was spread over the poles and grass. A hole, slightly bigger than the size of an average adult man’s head, was left open and through it human excrement was passed. The toilet had grass walls and no roof. An opening that served as both the entrance and exit to the toilet was designed in such a way that a person outside could not see whoever was inside the toilet, despite the fact that there was no door to close the entrance/exit. From the outside, on the grass wall next to the entrance/exit hung a sign written in bold black letters, ‘Men Only.’

Only three people could comfortably enter the toilet at the same time. Four or five people would be squeezed and their combined weight could cause the floor of the toilet to cave in. When we got to the toilet, two comrades were already inside trying to maintain contact with the comrade below. Comrade Tongogara ordered the two comrades to come out so that we could enter.

Accompanied by Comrade Danger Chimurenga, Comrade Tongo and I entered the toilet. Once inside, we tried to make contact with the comrade in the pit. Her voice was hardly audible. Comrade Tongo identified himself and prompted the comrade to identify herself. It was impossible to make sense of what she was saying as her voice was faint. We could not comprehend how she had squeezed through the circular hole, either intentionally or accidentally, to land at the bottom of the toilet pit. What was clear was that the comrade was in a very weak state and needed to be rescued without further delay.

We went out of the toilet and then Comrade Tongo ordered that its grass walls be demolished. That achieved, we carefully removed some of the logs that formed the toilet floor. Utmost care was needed to prevent any poles falling inside and thereby endangering the life of the comrade below. Once a reasonable opening had been created, we threw a rope down and ordered the comrade to hold it tightly so that we could pull her out. Our efforts were wasted. She did not have the strength to hold on to the rope. We decided to lower one of the comrades to go and tie a rope around her waist in such a way that we could pull her out without causing her much pain.

Comrade Tongogara selected one comrade who looked stronger than the rest for the task. In our doctrine, asking a comrade to make a choice was an unnecessary luxury. It was a sign of weakness for a commander to ask for volunteers. An effective commander simply assigned responsibilities to those who in his/her opinion were best suited for the task.

We began to lower the comrade slowly into the latrine pit. Six others were holding one end of the rope and releasing it slowly as the comrade descended. The comrade later recounted his ordeal.

“It was dark and the hot, pungent smell from the bottom of the pit made the descent unenviable. Huge flies buzzed around, disturbed by the invasion of their domain. As my feet came into contact with the soft excrement, I felt a cold wetness, in contrast to the warm air I had felt as I began my descent. I could not restrain a gasp of disgust.”

The comrades on the other end continued to release the rope bit by bit.

“I was knee deep in the stinking mess beneath, but my feet had not touched hard ground. Waist deep, and still I had not reached the bottom. I began to panic. If the comrades above continued releasing the rope, I might end up drowning in the horrible shit. I wanted to shout to them to pull me up. But if I aborted the descent at this stage, I was sure Comrade Tongogara would not be pleased. Thoughts of the female comrade who needed to be rescued gave me courage to persevere. Then another thought entered my mind, ‘suppose there is no comrade beneath and the voice that we had heard was from a ghost.’ I shivered with fear and the wet coldness that surrounded me.”

The comrades above continued releasing the rope.

“Some creepy little creatures were crawling on my body and one of them was moving fast towards my face. In haste and panic I wanted to brush it off. My right arm that was immersed in faeces jerked up and in the process brought with it its cargo, part of which landed in my open mouth as I prepared to scream, and the other part in my eyes. I missed the creepy creature altogether, the rope slipped from my hands and the fall that had begun was abruptly broken by the hard ground beneath. I stood immersed in the filthy smelly muck up to just below my chest. My eyes had not adjusted to the darkness beneath as my hands searched for the rope.”

Seeing there was now no strain on the rope at the bottom end, the comrades above enquired whether everything was okay.

“The question irritated me. How could I be okay immersed to the chest in this horrible shit? I wanted to challenge the comrades above to come down and find out for themselves, but fear of recriminations from the commander above made me keep my mouth shut. I continued groping in the dark for the elusive rope. ‘Got you,’ I exclaimed as my right hand found it. With my lifeline safely secure in my hand, my focus shifted to trying to locate the comrade I had come down for.

“I changed the rope from my right hand to the left. With my outstretched right hand I prodded into the wet thickness of the excrement, provoking a pungent smell. No body identified. The maggots crawling on the upper part of my body and along my outstretched hand were in their natural habitat. I called into the fading darkness as my eyes began to adjust to the gloom. A female voice responded to the call, but it was so faint that she seemed to be further away from me. I turned in the direction of where the sound seemed to come from and was startled at how close she was. Her whole body up to the shoulders was submerged in the shit that for the last three and a half days had been her prison. She was propped against the wall of the toilet pit and it was difficult to imagine how she had managed to keep herself from drowning. Maybe the lightness of her body against the denseness of the human matter, gave her the buoyancy to remain afloat.

“I quickly tied the rope around her waist and gave it a tug as a signal for the comrades above to start pulling her up. When she was safely out of the toilet pit, the rope was thrown back to me to climb out of the latrine,” the comrade concluded.

I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the person we had rescued; Comrade Ruvimbo Mujeni, the wife of Comrade Edgar Tekere, the Secretary General of ZANU. Comrade Tongogara immediately ordered some female comrades to assist her to have a bath, change her clothes and have something to eat. Details of her ordeal would be sought later after she had recovered from the traumatic events of the last few days. As soon as Mrs Tekere had been stabilised and given a thorough cleanup, Comrade Tongogara and his entourage called it a day, took her with them for further medical attention, and drove back to Chimoio town.

Throughout the day the comrades worked hard looking for the injured and burying the dead. So far, about four truckloads of comrades with varying degrees of injury had been taken to Chimoio hospital. Later, when the search parties congregated at the National Stores for a debrief and to receive their evening rations, I would have an idea of how many comrades altogether we had buried today.

Just when I thought it was time to return to the National Stores and call it a day also, Comrade Mao contacted me by radio. As my appointed coordinator for the phase of operations we were now in, I had delegated to him the responsibility for taking operational decisions and he was only to contact me if something big or tragic had happened. Mao’s strict adherence to instructions was one of the reasons I had given him the responsibility that he now shouldered.

“What is it that you want, Comrade Mao?” I tried to sound calm but my mind was in turmoil.

“Comrade Dragon, I am at Parirenyatwa Base (hospital base) and I would like you to come here please,” Comrade Mao implored.

“Whatever it is you want to show me, can’t it wait until tomorrow?” I did not mean what I said. Even as I asked the question, I had already started walking in the direction of Parirenyatwa. My escort section had to trot to catch up with me.

“I think it is extremely important that you come to the base today,” Comrade Mao insisted.

It took us just under fifteen minutes to cover the two kilometres separating Parirenyatwa from the HQ. Soon it would be dusk. As we entered the base we saw that all the barrack structures constructed of wood and grass and used as admission wards had been burnt down. The round huts used as living quarters for the hospital staff had also been burnt down. Two mobile operating theatres and three ambulances with their red crosses clearly marked were all burnt.

Comrade Mao and a group of comrades with him did not come to meet us as we entered the base, but remained standing where they were. I took it to mean that they expected us to go to where they stood. All that remained where there once were barracks and huts were ashes. The fire had burnt itself out, except for two or three positions where logs were still smouldering. The base must have been destroyed on the first day of the attack.

As we approached the position where the comrades stood, the brutal character and callousness of the rebel Rhodesian regime was vividly revealed. I stared in utter disbelief at the evidence of a heinous crime committed against humanity. A crime against people who had been dispossessed from birth, enslaved and humiliated in life, and now savagely and brutally robbed of the gift that only God Almighty can give – the gift of life. Cursed from the wombs of their mothers because their colour was black and condemned to a fate unbefitting a dog, for a crime committed and pre-judged – the fight for freedom and justice, against oppression and discrimination, the quest for equality and human dignity. None amongst us had been witness to the commission of this crime, and yet the picture spread before our very eyes told the whole story in graphic detail. The suffocating stench of death hung in the air, inducing feelings of nausea.

At the time of attack, there must have been between twenty and thirty patients admitted in the wards, mostly women and children. Add about fifteen medical assistants, two qualified doctors, four drivers and a token guard force of ten, and one could estimate that at least fifty comrades were in the base when the attack began. Fifty comrades, whose dream was to live in a free and democratic Zimbabwe. These were comrades who were willing to pay the supreme sacrifice not for their individual freedoms, but for the freedom of all the oppressed people in Zimbabwe.

Now all that was left were mounds of ashes in two burnt-out round huts. Those ashes told stories even more forcefully than an eyewitness account. The skulls had been totally burnt but defiantly held their form. You could count the number of victims, which we accurately did, by the remaining forms of their skulls – twenty-nine in the bigger hut and twenty-two in the smaller one, a total of fifty-one. Connected to each skull was an ash train, representing the body which, in addition to the suffering visited upon it by successive colonial administrations, had the additional God given responsibility of carrying the skull. As the grass huts burned, the flesh was the first to ignite and as it collapsed against the bone frame it had throughout its existence clothed and protected, it too became the fuel for the destruction of that it had sought to protect.

I saw in these ashes not just the remains of my comrades, but the shrieks of pain and suffering as the heat of the burning huts began to bake them alive and then violently tear away at their flesh and their very existence. I saw the pain and fear of the children as they clung to their mothers, beseeching them to come to their rescue and protection as they had so ably done before. I saw the pain and hopelessness of the parents, fighting not only to save their children, but themselves, knowing that other comrades who normally would come to their rescue were probably facing the same fate. I looked more closely at the ash remains and saw about twenty wire shackles that had tied the men’s hands to their backs. The flesh and bones these shackles had imprisoned had in their final act of defiance slipped out of bondage and left them like spectacle frames without lenses, to tell the story.

I saw the barbarous Rhodesian forces gleefully watching, with guns cocked and ready, lest there be some able to escape from the terrible inferno. That was the face I had known all my life, vividly portrayed and painted by the ash remains of my comrades. This was the ugly face of death and destruction – the face that characterised the brutal nature of the Smith regime.

How could the estimate of the hospital’s occupants closely match the actual mortality figures? This coincidence again told a story. On the first day of attack, the enemy dropped paratroopers in and around Parirenyatwa. The token guard force must have run out of ammunition trying to defend the base, and were eventually captured. Their hands were tied to their backs and they were thrown into one of the huts. The medical staff, many of whom could have managed to escape to safety, took the courageous decision that they could not escape and leave their patients to their fate. They tried to take their patients to safety with them. A few of the patients were amputees, some were too young or too old to be able to escape the enemy’s net, and others were too sick to move on their own.

The superior enemy, enjoying close air support, overcame them all and the able-bodied male nurses had their hands tied to their backs before being thrown with the rest into the two huts. The two huts had each two crudely constructed beds meant to accommodate two comrades. All the fifty-one comrades had been crammed into these two huts. Even without burning down the huts, most of the comrades would have suffocated to death.

The ashes before us had brought into sharp focus the diametrically opposed ideologies pursued by the Smith regime and that charted by our revolution. The former represented death and destruction and all the forces of evil, and the latter hoped for a brighter future which respects human life and treats it with dignity.

A shallow grave was dug where their bodies had fallen and with solemn dignity we laid their ashes to rest and commended their souls to the Almighty. As darkness enveloped the sky, our work was done, at least for today, and with my escort we were headed for the National Stores. One member of the escort picked up a thermometer as we were leaving Parirenyatwa and was strongly rebuked by another comrade who had observed him doing so, for disobeying instructions given in the morning not to take anything. Annoyed by the unnecessary fuss over a mere thermometer, the rebuked comrade rather than throw the thermometer down, threw it far away as a way of venting his anger. That saved his life and that of the comrades near him. As the thermometer made contact with the hard ground there was such a loud explosion, we couldn’t believe it had been caused by a thermometer. Evidently the enemy had, before leaving the base, planted some high explosive objects so that they could continue causing death or injuries long after they had left.

By the time we got to the National Stores, the majority of the search parties had already received their rations and finished eating. Many had retired to sleep after a gruelling and stressful day. I too wanted to retire early to bed after receiving a brief of the day’s events from Comrade Mao.

Luck was not on my side. My customary bath before bed was interrupted. The three days of bombardments had made me skip my daily routine that guaranteed me refreshing sleep every evening and I had looked forward to settling into the routine once again, starting from today. There was commotion and shouts of “Comrade Dragon, Comrade Dragon” as comrades frantically sought to talk to me. I called back that I would be with them in a minute, and without drying myself I jumped into my trousers and finished putting on my shirt on the move.

“What has happened?” I enquired nervously as I neared where the comrades were anxiously waiting for my arrival.

“About five minutes ago eight comrades suddenly became hysterical. It was as if they had become possessed by some evil spirits,” the most senior amongst the comrades quickly explained. “They were saying meaningless words and tearing away at their clothes,” he continued.

“What happened to the weapons they were carrying?” I was immediately concerned that in their deranged state they might turn their guns against their comrades with disastrous consequences.

“We managed to disarm them. Fortunately their interest in their weapons was not to use them but to destroy them. By the time we managed to subdue and disarm them, two rifles had been broken in halves, and they were all foaming in their mouths,” concluded the comrade.

“Let me quickly put on my shoes and we can go to see how they are feeling now.” I had left the bath so hurriedly that I did not have the time to put on my shoes, but I had carried them in my arms.

I was eager to witness the bizarre spectacle that had been reported to me. Soon we were on our way to where the incident had occurred, just about 150 metres away. We had hardly covered half the distance when another three comrades came rushing towards us.

“Comrade Dragon, Comrade Dragon,” they shouted as soon as they were within earshot, “another five comrades are again hysterical, just like the first eight.” There was panic in their voices and instinctively I knew this development would haunt us during the next few days.

We were able once again to subdue and disarm the latest victims of this strange illness. The symptoms they exhibited resembled exactly those that had been described to me a while ago. The first eight had been put in a room and placed under guard in case there should be a recurrence of the symptoms they had exhibited earlier on. I entered their room and they were all seated quietly with blank expressions on their faces.

After some consultations, I decided that the affected comrades should all be taken by lorry to Chindunduma Base for medical observation. Just in case the problem should resurface while on the move, I directed that they be accompanied by another ten men, preferably medics, to help to subdue them. When the lorry returned, I wanted it to bring about twenty able-bodied men to come and reinforce our numbers.

Thankfully there were no further developments on this first day of searching for the injured and burying the dead. It must have been about 1.30 am when I finally went to sleep.

Burials – Day 2

Around 5.20 am I woke up, or rather I was woken up by some strange noises from outside the hastily constructed hut where I slept. I felt that I wanted to continue sleeping a little longer and had almost convinced myself that it was the right thing to do, when the noises outside my hut again attracted my attention. The noises did not sound human and yet we had no animals in our base, not even cats or dogs. Reluctantly I slid off my crude bed constructed from poles and grass and made my way outside.

Dawn was breaking and although it was not quite light yet, one could see objects about thirty metres away. There were no clouds in the sky and it promised to be a clear shiny day. The movement of a dog caught my attention. Strange indeed, we did not have dogs in the base and yet what I was seeing was certainly a very big dog. The dog was stealthily moving further away from my hut. I followed behind trying to see what the dog was up to. No, it was not one dog, maybe two or three. As I continued to follow, the dogs increased their speed and seemed to be contesting among themselves for possession of some food, maybe a bone. They further increased their pace and soon were out of view.

I had by now gone about forty metres from my hut and I decided it was time to go back. As I retraced my steps my foot stepped on what I first thought might be a tree branch, but the object seemed to have some softness. I stooped down to pick the object up so I could identify it. It was barely off the ground when, in utter revulsion, I threw it back to where it had come from. The mystery object was not a tree branch; it was a human hand! What I had just been following were not dogs, but a pack of jackals. The significance of this find was too ghastly and sickening to comprehend. While we slept the jackals were awake, ravaging through the shallow graves for what we held so dear. Disgusted and dejected, I blew an emergency whistle.

By the time the emergency parade ended, there was gloom and outrage amongst all the comrades at the desecration of the sanctity of our fallen heroes. The outrage was directed not at the jackals, they had done nothing wrong except to answer the call of their natural instincts, but at the Smith regime and its British colonial masters. It was that regime that carried out the massacres, and it was that regime that must shoulder the burden of responsibility for any deaths, injuries or bizarre occurrences. The gloom was resultant from the painful loss of the dear departed comrades, but also from the realisation that the tortuous burials completed yesterday had to be redone today. None amongst the comrades was aware that Comrade Tongogara had already made arrangements with the Mozambican authorities to assist with bulldozers to dig mass graves.

The second day of searching for the injured and burying our dead had begun on a very sad note. More than fifty percent of the shallow graves in which our comrades were buried yesterday had been ravaged, and body parts could be seen strewn all over the battlefield; an overwhelming stench of death could be smelt wherever one went.

A human body is the most expendable piece of trash one can think of. Extinguish the flame of life and during the first day you are burying a comrade you have known and loved with all the dignity and reverence befitting his status in life. The second day the features are puffed but still recognizable. An odour like a protective shield creates a distance between the deceased and those comrades he held so close and so dear in life. The living comrades cover their mouths in order not to feel the revolting ‘breath’ of the dead. By the third day a metamorphic transformation has taken place. The body is cooked and begins to tear away when gently pulled. The odour is now repugnant. All the living would wish to do is to quickly dispose of the bodies in a two-metre deep hole, cover the hole with earth and, to be certain, put stones on top to ensure the odour does not escape from the body that created it.

What then is a comrade? Certainly not the stinking flesh that we bury. A comrade and comradeship is the resilient spirit that resides in a body. When the flesh ceases to exist the spirit frees itself, multiplies and finds other bodies to occupy. The enemy, no matter how strong, can destroy the body but not, and never, the spirit. It is precisely for this reason that Mbuya Nehanda prophesied that her ‘bones’ would arise to continue the struggle. ‘Bones’ was a prophetic reference to the undying revolutionary spirit that would find other human forms to reside in and prosecute the struggle until final victory.

By 10 am two bulldozers from the Mozambican government had arrived and started tearing away furiously at the hard stubborn ground. The earth had found its match and reluctantly gave in. When another two bulldozers arrived two and half hours later, one mass grave had been completed and the gruelling task of filling it with the corpses of our fallen heroes had begun in earnest. I had reorganized my men for the changed circumstances of the second day. About 250 comrades were to continue searching far and wide for the injured and the remains of the dead. This task would continue to be coordinated by Comrade Mao. Another 300 comrades under my direct supervision were to exhume the remains of those buried in shallow graves yesterday, search for body parts strewn around from the vandalized graves, and carry newly discovered bodies, all for burial or reburial in the mass graves. Using blankets and bed sheets we made many stretchers which we used to carry the corpses and the dismembered body parts. A few stretchers were reserved to carry the injured.

Periodically I received updates on the progress of the other search parties from Comrade Mao. As more bodies were discovered, these were carried back to the locations of the mass graves. The injured were placed at collection points to await pick-up by our lorry.

The comrades under my direct supervision were committed to their task and maintained their motivation. All had their mouths and noses covered with pieces of cloth to shield themselves from the pervasive odour of the decomposing bodies. I chose to remain ‘unprotected’ from the odour from the beginning to the very end of the burial process. I kept on speaking to the comrades and even cracked some jokes in the process of dumping the corpses into the mass graves. I even ordered dry rations to be distributed without pausing what we were doing and was the first to eat my ration right there on the mass grave, as the bodies of the comrades were continuing to pile up.

My behaviour was intended as a psychological ploy and therapy for the living not to take death too seriously. In my mind’s eye, I saw not the decaying corpses of the comrades, but their liberated spirit, the undying revolutionary spirit that had cheated death. And as we committed ‘dust to dust’, I found strength and comfort from the knowledge that there still were many comrades into whose bodies the liberated spirits would find a home from which to continue the struggle.

I was satisfied with the progress we had made by 2.30 pm. All the shallow graves we dug yesterday had been emptied of their contents; one mass grave was already full and the second one was already two-thirds full. We had collected the body parts that had been scattered all over the battlefield. I meticulously kept a record of the numbers of all the comrades we were burying.

Just when I thought everything was going well, a complication arose which threatened to bring to a halt the work we were doing. Out of the blue, about ten comrades became hysterical. I ordered the unaffected comrades to subdue them. They were succeeding in this endeavour when among them fourteen more became hysterical. The numbers of the affected comrades rose to thirty-one, then forty-three, and finally fifty-six.

Until yesterday I had never been confronted with cases of mass hysteria. The thirteen cases yesterday had seemed to me a massive number – now today a staggering fifty-six! We succeeded in subduing all the fifty-six comrades, but not before seven of them had thrown themselves over the corpses in the mass grave that was just over two-thirds full. One had to see the drama that unfolded in order to believe it. None of the unaffected could be ordered or persuaded to venture into the grave to assist in bringing them out. Others had actually run away from the graveside for fear of ending up in the grave themselves. Although I had unsuccessfully tried to persuade some comrades that we go down together to bring the seven comrades out, deep inside me I was also afraid of the undertaking and, while I didn’t show it, I was relieved that they refused. In the end, we waited until the effects of the hysteria had waned and we persuaded the seven to come out on their own with very limited assistance from outside. Fortunately, there were no further cases of mass hysteria.

We continued with the burials, but the morale of the comrades had been severely affected. All the victims of mass hysteria had to be transported to Chindunduma Base and replacements had to be sought. Despite the late afternoon drama, reports from Comrade Mao suggested that fewer corpses were being found. His search parties were conducting properly targeted sweeps to ensure no dead or injured comrades were left behind. If this trend were to continue, we would be winding up our operations the next day.

My happiness at the encouraging reports was short-lived.

“Comrade Dragon, we have just discovered a scene of a massacre and I think it is absolutely necessary that you come and view it before we start removing the bodies,” Comrade Mao beseeched over the radio.

“What is it again, I thought a while ago you expressed optimism that our task was almost done,” there was despondency in my voice.

“Indeed, Comrade Dragon. There is a gorge that leads in the direction of Chimoio town where no one had suspected there could be dead bodies. From above it is difficult to see the bodies. A comrade who sought the privacy of the gorge to relieve his bowels stumbled on the gruesome discovery,” Comrade Mao explained apologetically.

I knew exactly what place Comrade Mao was referring to. On the first day of the attack I had seen the Rhodesian soldiers being parachuted into that general area. I thought then that the intention of this enemy deployment was to intercept and kill any comrades who tried to use this route to escape to Chimoio town. To thwart these machinations I had deployed some of our forces in an area adjacent to where the enemy had occupied ground with the specific responsibility to prevent comrades from going in that direction. I had correctly interpreted the enemy’s intentions and had taken the right preventive measures. How come then that a massacre is alleged to have taken place? Could it be that my men did not perform their duties efficiently or maybe by the time their deployment was effected the massacre had already taken place?

The scene of the massacre had not been disturbed on the insistence of Comrade Mao that I must see it first. The gorge was narrower at the top and wider at the bottom, probably due to the erosion of the bottom sides by water flowing through it during the rainy season. The bottom of the gorge was thus transformed into some kind of caves that could easily conceal a few people. If there were massive numbers of comrades who sought a safe passage to Chimoio town through the gorge, it would be difficult to conceal them.

The base lying closest to the gorge was Mbuya Nehanda. The gorge lay about half a kilometre away from the base and stretched for some distance in the direction of Chimoio town. It was thus the obvious preferred escape route for the occupants of Mbuya Nehanda Base who faced the risk of falling victim to the enemy’s ferocious bombs. The base’s occupants were female comrades and at the early morning hour when the bombardments began, the drift of male comrades from other bases had not begun. As I looked at the heaps of female corpses huddled together, I knew these were occupants of Mbuya Nehanda Base who in their bid to escape had seen the gorge as their safe passage and their togetherness as their source of strength. The enemy either had prior intelligence of the existence of the gorge or was attracted by the large numbers that flocked into it, when he parachuted his forces to annihilate any who sought its sanctuary.

In this cold-blooded and indiscriminate massacre, more than 100 comrades were shot and killed at close range. Even in death the comrades clung to each other, refusing to separate as if to do so was an act of betrayal of one another.

Already it was after 5 pm and in an hour’s time it would be getting dark. I reinforced the search parties with some comrades who were under my direct command so that we could remove all the bodies that were in the gorge today. The stench of death was overwhelming and multitudes of flies buzzed in noisy protest at any encroachment.

We worked late into the evening burying our dead. I had resolved that all the comrades in the gorge should be buried tonight, thinking that the task would not take more than three hours. My calculations were completely off the mark. I had not taken into account the fact that when it got dark it would be difficult to extract the bodies from the gorge. Darkness itself became an annoying obstacle, not because of bad visibility, but because of the psychological fear that the combination of dead bodies and darkness creates in the minds of people, especially those who are superstitious. At one juncture we had to halt what we were doing until we had brought enough lights to illuminate the area we were working in, since only a handful of comrades could be persuaded to go below in the dark.

It was almost midnight when the job was finally done. We were all tired, every one of us, but filled with utmost satisfaction that we accorded our comrades as dignified a burial as we could possibly give. Judging by the isolated discoveries of bodies during the late afternoon, excluding of-course the gorge discoveries, the burials of our comrades were coming to an end. Comrade Mao’s brief confirmed this position.

I was thankful that we did not have further cases of mass hysteria. When I finally went to sleep, just after 2 am, there was absolute quietness in the base. The hard work that the comrades had been involved in during the last two days acted as a sedative, helping them to fall into deep slumber. They deserved the rest.

Burials – Day 3

On the third day I increased significantly the number of comrades in the search parties by reducing the comrades under my direct supervision, leaving only a token number. I wanted us to conduct a thorough sweep of all our bases and the surrounding areas to make sure that no injured or dead comrade was left behind.

By 10 am only two bodies had been found, although quite a large area had been covered. I kept in touch with Comrade Mao who informed me that there were no further sightings of the dead or injured. In his estimation it might take another three to four hours to complete the sweeps. Unless there were unexpected new finds, I was now in a position to give to the Party the official figure of the comrades who died at Chimoio. At this stage I could only estimate the numbers of those who were injured because some had reached Chimoio town, Gondola and other health centres without our knowledge.

At 4 pm I raised Comrade Mao again to get an update on the progress and was pleased to know that he had checked with the other four search commanders and they confirmed that no further corpses or injured comrades had been located.

“You should now inform them that I want all the comrades to be at the National Stores not later than 5.30 pm so that we can officially wind up our operation,” I ordered.

“I have already instructed them to meet me at the HQ so that we can proceed to the National Stores together. They should arrive at this location any minute now,” Comrade Mao responded.

“Good. Just let me know when they all arrive, and remember once again, not later than 5.30 pm at the National Stores.”

With the few comrades I had remained behind with we were finishing filling up the five mass graves with earth and just putting the final touches. Everything was going smoothly and soon when everyone assembled I would address them and express my deepest gratitude to all the comrades for their tireless commitment to giving their dead comrades their last respects. I was rehearsing in my mind how best to express myself, when I was interrupted by radio communication from Comrade Mao.

“Comrade Dragon, all the four search commanders are now here. We are about to set off for that location and hope to be there between 5 and 5.15.”

“Well done. See you all soon,” I concluded and continued with my thought process. My address must highlight the fact that the blood of our comrades lay on the hands of the Rhodesian regime and their British colonial masters. The only way to avenge their deaths was to pick up their guns and continue the struggle they were waging until final victory. After my address, the comrades must feel inspired. Again my thoughts were interrupted. Who could this be? About five minutes ago I had just spoken to Comrade Mao and I did not expect any interruptions from anyone else.

“Comrade Dragon, may I please speak to Comrade Dragon.” There was urgency and fear in the voice. I could not say whose voice it was; certainly it was not Comrade Mao’s voice. It mattered not who it was, I wanted to know the reason for the panic.

“This is Comrade Dragon, can I help you?”

The comrade on the other end was so panicky that he did not seem to understand what I said or recognise my voice.

“I said I want to speak to Comrade Dragon, and it’s urgent.” The comrade sounded hysterical.

I lost the calmness I had when I first responded to the comrade’s enquiry. The desperation in his voice had a chilling effect on me and I began to panic too. Thoughts about how I would address the comrades were pushed aside, and I shouted over the radio, “This is Comrade Dragon, what has happened?”

“Oh my God!” the comrade could not conceal his grief, “five comrades have eaten poisoned food and they are in terrible pain.”

How could this happen at this juncture when we considered our task finished. From the first day we began our burials I made it very clear that we could not guarantee the safety of any food except that at the National Stores which during and after the attack was always under our guard. Every morning we gave the comrades their dry rations for the day and I had instructed Comrade Mao to emphasise that no other food except their rations was to be eaten. If these comrades had listened to my instructions and the daily warnings they got from Comrade Mao, they would not be in the state they were now.

“Quickly give them lots of milk to drink; it might help lessen the effects of the poison.”

“There is no milk here. The comrades are writhing from excruciating pain. Please help.”

“I will send some milk down there right away.” Then it dawned on me that I had not asked about where the incident occurred. “By the way, where are you located right now?”

“At the HQ,” responded the comrade without any delay.

“Who am I speaking to anyway?” I enquired. By this time the comrades who had heard my conversation had, without being urged to do so, prepared lots of milk and were waiting to be told where to take it to.

“Comrade Tererai,” was the quick reply.

“If you are at the HQ let me talk to Comrade Mao.” The question at the back of my mind was why Comrade Mao had not reported this incident to me himself, unless of course the incident happened after he had left.

“Comrade Mao is one of the affected comrades.”

I was shocked. My mind was in turmoil and I did not know what to think, what to say, or what to do. What tragic irony, Comrade Mao of all the people, the one who delivered my message daily to the comrades not to eat anything except the rations from the National Stores, the one who above anyone else knew my concerns about the possibility of the enemy poisoning our foodstuffs. Had I not heard correctly? Of course I had. What could have tempted him so much to want to eat?

“Comrade Dragon, are you still there?” Comrade Tererai was confused by my silence.

I became conscious of the comrades standing next to me holding a bucket of milk and instead of answering Comrade Tererai I vented my frustration on them. “What do you think you are doing standing there like statues when comrades are dying?”

“We don’t know where to take the milk,” one of them stated. Of course I had not told them where to go with the milk.

“Go with it to the HQ as quickly as you can.”

“Comrade Dragon, can you hear me please?” Again there was panic in Tererai’s voice.

“I am here, please go ahead.”

“One of the comrades has just died.”

The words were like a thunderbolt to my ears. It was now my turn to panic. “Who? Comrade Mao?”

“Not him. But all of them are frothing at the mouth and are in extreme pain.”

“The milk will be there shortly. As soon as it comes I want you to force them all to drink it.” Even as I said these words, I knew that it might be too late to save them. “What exactly did they eat?” I was now curious to know what could have tempted their appetites.

“Biscuits! There were packets of biscuits in one of the rooms. Comrade Mao picked one of them up and inspected it. He commented that there were no punch marks on the packet and so it meant the enemy had not tempered with it,” Comrade Tererai went beyond what he was asked but I did not mind because I was also curious to know everything. “He opened the packet and shared it with the others,” Comrade Tererai concluded.

“Ask one of the four search commanders to come over the radio.” I wanted to know if Comrade Mao ate the biscuits in their presence and why they did not discourage him from doing so.

“They are the very ones who ate with him.”

I felt dizzy. I had chosen the five fated comrades to spearhead the search for the injured and dead due to the faith I had in their command capabilities and above all because of their indubitable discipline – until today of course.

They had acquitted themselves wonderfully well all the way, but collapsed at the finish line. About this time I had hoped to be addressing all the comrades, thanking them for their unyielding spirit that enabled us to accord our fallen heroes the respect they earned and deserved. I had planned in my mental rehearsals to pay special tribute to Comrade Mao and his four search commanders for the manner in which they led the comrades to accomplish the difficult but necessary task.

“Comrade Dragon,” the monotonous voice of the ‘messenger of death’ came over the radio, “two other comrades have died and only Comrade Mao is barely clinging to life.” How else could I describe Comrade Tererai – each time he came over the radio, it would be to herald bad tidings.

“The comrades I sent with milk, haven’t they arrived yet?” The poison must have been too strong and quick acting. Within a very short space of time four comrades had died and a fifth had reached the precipice of death. I was quietly making a silent prayer, ‘Dear Lord I know you are there, and I know you answer my prayers. I have on numerous occasions walked through the valley of death and never have I lost faith that you would see me through.’

“They have just arrived comrade Dragon.”

“Good, tell them to make Comrade Mao drink lots of it,” There was a glimmer of hope in my mind.

“He can’t drink; he has gone past that stage now.” Again the angel of death breaking the final straw I was clinging to.

“Shit, I don’t care how he takes it – shove it down his goddamn throat if you must.” As soon as the words escaped my mouth, my conscience told me I was damaging my case, the one I had started presenting to my Lord. ‘Oh Lord of mercy, you know I am a sinner. There are so many ways I have wronged you, but I appeal to your gracious spirit not to punish Mao for my transgressions. And you know Lord, that even though I sin, my desire is to be good and to deserve being called Your son. Dear Lord, control my life and my actions so that everything I do pleases you. And my Lord….,’ my silent prayer was interrupted by the messenger of death.

“Comrade Dragon,” Comrade Tererai’s sad voice came over the radio.

“You don’t have to say it, I already know,” I interrupted the messenger of death, “Comrade Mao is dead,” I said as a matter of fact. “Isn’t that right?” I sought confirmation of my worst fears.

“I am afraid you are right comrade Dragon. How did you know?” Comrade Tererai expressed surprise.

I ignored the question. “I want the five bodies brought here right away,” I said firmly and dismissively.

Earth mounds about half a metre above ground level represented the locations, lengths and widths of the mass graves in which our dead comrades, the heroes of our ‘Chimurenga Chechipiri’ lay in eternal peace and silence. In life they had stood together, side by side, defending each other against all forms of aggression from the colonial enemy. In death they lay together, side by side, to be immortalised in the annals of Zimbabwe’s history as true revolutionaries and liberators, who paid the supreme sacrifice for the cause of freedom and independence.

In my heart of hearts, I dedicated myself to be forever faithful to the cause for which they had laid down their lives. In my heart of hearts, I would be forever grateful to the comrades who, having survived the enemy bombs and bullets, had given our dead heroes as dignified a burial as possible under the prevailing circumstances. On this day, I had planned and quietly rehearsed a fitting tribute for both the dead and the living, to be delivered in my address to mark the end of the burials. For the living, I had planned to single out for special mention the five comrades who had spearheaded our burial operations. Now they were no more, having succumbed to the very temptation they had themselves implored all the comrades to resist – not to eat any food except that provided at the National Stores.

When the five bodies arrived everyone was on parade to give them a heroes’ welcome. There was a sombre mood amongst all the comrades gathered to give a final and befitting tribute to our heroes. One of the mass graves had already been reopened in readiness to welcome the five commanders to their final resting place alongside the other dead heroes that they had worked so hard to afford a decent burial to. After a short, moving ceremony we buried the last five of our heroes. These last comrades brought the total number of comrades who died at Chimoio to 785. While I directly supervised the burial of our comrades into five mass graves around the National Stores, the total number of mass graves, including those at other bases like Takawira 2, the HQ, etc., came to fifteen.

Throughout the attacks on our bases and during the process of burials and the caring for the wounded, I had needed all my courage and tenacity. Whatever emotions I had felt, I showed no outward signs. Now that the job was done, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the enormity of the events of the last six days. I barely could manage to conceal the emotions that threatened to spill over and for the first time become visible to those around me. Before this could be allowed to happen, I decided to find a secluded place where I could allow my emotions to boil over in solitude.

I stood up to move, but my right leg refused me. It seemed there was a numbness spreading from my thigh down to my foot. I rubbed my leg with the palm of my hand, hoping that the heat generated by the friction would ease the numbness away. On past occasions I had dealt with numbness to my leg or arm in this manner and with dramatic effect. I had no doubt at all that this unconventional therapy would still have the same effect today.

As the palm of my hand began its familiar procedure, I felt a sharp pain as it passed the mid area of the leg. I winced but decided to ignore the pain. As the palm began its upward movement, I put a bit more pressure hoping the increased frictional heat would eliminate both the numbness and the pain I had felt a while ago. An involuntary scream escaped through my lips as an even sharper pain was caused to my leg. I carefully inspected my leg to identify the cause of my pain. The end of a metal fragment embedded in my leg could just be seen. This was a fragment from a bomb that had pierced my leg on the first day of attack just after I had managed to retrieve a gun and ammunition from my dead comrades, but could not feel until today because of the intensity of the enemy’s aggression and the therapeutic concentration on the burials.

As I was driven to a clinic in Chimoio to have the fragment removed, the boiling emotions that had threatened to erupt and spill over were conveniently camouflaged by the pain of the fragment in my leg.

By all accounts, what happened at Chimoio during the period 23–25 November, 1977 can only be described as genocide by the barbarous colonial regime, one of the many such acts in the history of our struggle for freedom and independence.

Epilogue – The Dream

I took a lift in an old Peugeot 404 from Chimoio town to Umtali. On many occasions I had travelled between these two towns and the longest time I took, in a bus, to cover this distance had been one and half hours. Today it took over three hours to travel the same distance. The car must have been a 1960 model for it surely must have outlived its usefulness. After every two or three kilometres it coughed, sputtered and stopped.

The owner was familiar with the problem and before alighting to investigate, or better still, to resolve the problem, he called to one of the passengers, whom I later learned was his assistant, to alight first and put some stones behind the rear wheels to prevent the car from rolling backwards. Obviously the handbrake was not functioning and he did not trust that leaving the car in gear would stop it from the backward motion. That done, he alighted followed by his passengers, altogether eight in a sedan meant to carry only four passengers.

Calmly, the driver opened the bonnet of the car to reveal a leaking and boiling radiator. He then explained to all his passengers that it was necessary to keep the bonnet open for fifteen to twenty minutes to allow the radiator to cool off before he could attempt to start the engine. I peeped into the engine. The only thing that made the car a Peugeot was its body. The engine had parts from many different models – the carburettor belonged to a Ford, the starter was that of a Mazda. Even bicycle spokes and tire tubes helped to keep the engine from falling apart.

In the meantime, the assistant after pegging the rear wheels took a twenty-litre tin from the boot to go and look for water from the nearest village. On his return, the water was poured into the leaking radiator and we the passengers were asked to push start the car.

“Why don’t you start the car in reverse?” I enquired as the driver ordered his passengers to push the car forward up the slope. “It is easier to let it roll backwards down the slope,” I proffered my advice based on my knowledge of cars.

The driver threw an accusing glance in my direction, irritated that a passenger should lecture him on what to do with his car, and gave an icy response, “This car does not start in reverse. You better push hard if you want us to go, and stop playing an expert.”

Each time it appeared the car wanted to start, it would go into convulsions and backfire loudly through the exhaust pipe and then go silent. We had pushed the car for almost 100 metres and our clothes were drenched in sweat when finally it went into the now familiar convulsions, but this time it started. The driver ordered us to jump into the car while it was in motion, afraid that if he stopped it the engine would stall. This was a dangerous manoeuvre, especially considering that the car was overcrowded. When the last passenger had just got in, the engine cut off. We disembarked and restarted the formula.

Finally we were able to make the car start and were on our way to Umtali. After travelling another five kilometres, the car stalled again. As we waited for the engine to cool off before we could attempt to push start it, a tractor passed by and I pleaded with its driver to give me a lift to Umtali. I left the Peugeot and its passengers behind, but not before the owner had made me pay the full amount I had been charged to get to Umtali. I chose not to argue about this obvious injustice, mainly out of fear of the owner’s temperament.

We were two kilometres from the border post when the Peugeot I had left behind caught up with us. As it overtook us the owner/driver blew the horn incessantly for about half a minute and then he and his passengers threw punches into the air, out of their open windows, in mocking celebration that they had left me behind. Their attitude was so annoying and I was brooding over it when one kilometre further down the road we came upon their stalled vehicle. They looked away from our passing tractor as they waited for their engine to cool off. Even though the border was only a short walking distance away, the fate of the passengers was inextricably linked to that of the Peugeot 404 and its owner.

When I got to the long distance bus terminal in Sakubva, I was fortunate to find a bus revving its engine and ready to leave for Salisbury. I boarded the bus and was one of several standing passengers as the bus was full beyond its authorised capacity, and for most of the journey I remained a standing passenger.

It took us close to five hours to reach Salisbury. All along the way the bus made numerous stops – twice for it to refuel and on four other occasions, for the many human tankers amongst its passengers to refuel from the abundant restaurants and bottle-stores that dotted the road.

Soon after arriving in Salisbury I wasted no time in getting a bus that would take me on the last leg of my journey, to my rural home under Chief Madziva in Shamva district. So far, it seemed, the journey had been an endless march in a desert of pain and hope. Would there be an end to the painful delays that delayed my reunion with my family and friends from whom I had been separated for the last three years? How were my parents, my brothers and sisters, with whom I had had neither contact nor word during my period of absence? I sincerely hoped that at least all of them were alive and in good health.

After a thirty-minute break in Bindura, the provincial capital of Mashonaland Central Province, there were no further lengthy delays, just brief stops to pick-up or drop off passengers, before I reached my final destination. The last forty minutes of my journey, though without any mishaps, were the most harrowing. Such was my impatience and my motivation to reach my destination, strangely contradictory and yet complementary emotions, I became conscious of every metre travelled and could feel the slow and agonising tick of every second.

At exactly 3.35 pm the bus stopped at my station. As I alighted, the impatience that had accompanied me disappeared and was replaced by hope and expectations. Expectations that soon, in the next fifteen to twenty minutes I would be re-united with my friends, especially Kennedy, and hope that their characters had not changed during the three years of our separation. The change from impatience to hope and expectation provided motivation with compatible partners.

We grew up together in the same village and our homes were only a kilometre and a half apart. From childhood we used to alternate playing at each other’s homes. I viewed their parents as my very own and they too felt the same towards mine. Kennedy and David were born identical twins. So identical were they that an outsider could not distinguish one from the other, were it not for the scar on David’s cheek. This scar was hardly visible from a distance and did not spoil David’s handsome appearance – it just added an interesting dimension to it. In addition to their identical appearances, the twin brothers had identical voices and wore identical clothes. They even attended the same schools and graduated as lawyers from the same university. After completion of studies, they worked for the same law firm and, later in life, married identical twin sisters.

Up to High School I too went to the same schools and was in the same classrooms with them. I knew Kennedy and David so well and could easily identify the subtle differences in their appearances and their voices that others could not detect.

From the bus stop I began my two-kilometre walk home. I realised with a sense of guilt that the focus of my motivation had shifted away from my home and family and towards my twin friends. In my perception, my friends had somehow become two features on one side of the coin, and I, the other side of that same coin. Kennedy, my closest friend, was the dominant feature on their side with David providing the inconspicuous but necessary background to it.

Their home was closest to the main road, only one and a half kilometres from the station where I had alighted. I could see smoke billowing from the thatched roof of their kitchen, a sure sign at least that there were people at their home. As I walked along the footpath my mind was divided between ensuring I did not veer off the narrow footpath and fantasising about what our reunion would be like. By going to Mozambique alone without taking them with me, or even informing them of my intentions, I had betrayed the bond of friendship and the ‘oneness’ that our upbringing had forged amongst us. Ours had appeared to be an inseparable relationship with a common destiny. Sometimes the relationship between friends is much stronger and more enduring than between family members.

I was now closer to their home and could clearly observe the activities that were taking place in their courtyard. Mrs Chademana appeared at the kitchen door holding a big round clay pot in her hands. I assumed she was going to fetch water from a well about 300 metres away. Our eyes met and the pot slipped from her hands and fell to the hard ground beneath, breaking into small pieces. She seemed unperturbed by the loss of her prized possession and instead started running towards me, ululating at the same time. I too had begun sprinting towards her, each of us unable to control the emotions that our reunion generated.

Mr Chademana, who had his back turned to me as I approached their home, was at first perplexed when his wife broke the pot. Knowing how much she loved that pot he was undecided whether to rebuke or console her. But when she began running and ululating at the same time, he mistook these joyful gestures for fear and panic. Quickly he picked up the hand axe that lay beside him, jumped up from the wooden stool he was seated on and hastily took off after his wife, ready to confront any challenge that had caused her so much fear and panic. Then he saw me closing the gap separating me from his wife. He too was filled with joy and threw down the hand axe whose purpose had been swept aside by the emotions of reunion. He increased his pace, not to catch up with his wife but to outdo her in welcoming me.

As our bodies came into contact our outstretched arms encircled one another, the thrill of reunion after three years separation determining our actions. These joyous expressions culminated in one trying to lift the other off the ground. I was the stronger and taller of the two and won this undeclared weightlifting contest with ease.

“Oh mom,” I kept repeating these two words while at the same time trying to overcome the exhaustion from the race to reunite and the effort of keeping an adult woman, about my size, suspended in air.

“My dear son,” she kept on responding with some effort as my encircling arms seemed to be squeezing her breath from her body.

More out of tiredness than the desire to do so, I lowered her body to the ground.

Mr Chademana had by now reached us. The same emotions that had drawn Mrs Chademana and me to each other, once again took charge. I let Mrs Chademana go and turned to affectionately hug her husband.

“Oh father, how very nice to see you after such a long time,” I held his body in a tight embrace and we let our emotions flow through each other. Tears of joy trickled down my cheeks and for a minute or two I kept clinging on to him, speechless. As I regained my composure I began to think, ‘mine is the return of the Biblical prodigal son, except of course that my two loyal brothers, the ones that stayed behind, were not in sight to welcome me. Maybe they were visiting their in-laws accompanied by their wives.’

We began to speak at the same time. In our culture if this occurs the younger person gives a chance to the older one to speak first. I stopped speaking and Mrs Chademana continued with what she wanted to say.

“I was just saying,” she went on, “where did you leave your brothers?”

Not only had we spoken at the same time, but we also wanted to raise the same subject. The question coming from her, as it did, took me by surprise. Surely she can’t be talking of my friends, Kennedy and David; she must be referring to my biological brothers, David and Jacob. “Which brothers are you talking about, mom?”

“Your brothers, Kennedy and David.”

I was thunderstruck. My face must have betrayed my confusion.

“You seem puzzled and confused, is something the matter?” Both Mr and Mrs Chademana’s countenances reflected the concern that was written all over my face.

“I had hoped that after three years separation I would reunite with them today,” I responded.

“My son,” Mr Chademana began, “three weeks and three days after you left three years ago, your brothers left us saying they were going to look for you.”

“But they did not know where I had gone, I never told them or anyone for that matter.”

“I asked them where they hoped to find you,” Mr Chademana seemed lost in his thoughts and appeared not to have heard what I had just said, “and Kennedy responded that he did not know since you never gave them even a hint that you were going away. However, he said his intuition told him you must have gone to Mozambique.”

The joys of reunion were now overshadowed by the sad awareness that none of us knew where my friends – their children – could be found. I spent a few more minutes with the family, during which time I learned that two years after my friends had also disappeared, their wives opted to go and live with their parents while awaiting their return.

As I bade farewell to my friends’ parents, the faces I saw were not theirs, but those of my own parents. That’s when I woke up (in my dream).

Now I was in Mozambique. During these past three years I was a director of a machine-building plant. Amongst my 100-man workforce were Kennedy and David, my boyhood friends who had come to join me in Mozambique. I gave them key positions in the company I worked for and they had earned my complete trust. They were so loyal, hardworking and innovative that I could not imagine even a day without them.

This morning when I woke up, I had had a strange but interesting dream. I could not remember all the exact details about the dream, but I knew it concerned me, Kennedy and David and our families. Somehow I felt an urge that I should share this dream with Kennedy and I hoped that once I started telling him about it, I would recall all the details.

Whenever I wanted to speak to Kennedy I always sent someone to go and call him to come to me, whether at my office or my house. Today I broke with this tradition and decided to pay him a surprise visit at his three roomed cottage. I wanted to share the fascinating dream with him as quickly as possible. When I got there he was seated in his lounge with the door wide open and his back to the entrance. His suitcase was open and next to him as if he was packing his clothes to go on a journey.

“Surprise, surprise,” I called out to him as I got to his doorstep, “may I come in?” No response.

I could have sworn that he heard me because I shouted so loud that even if he had been asleep I would have woken him up. But then, I was a hundred percent positive that he was not asleep. I walked up to him and shook his right shoulder, while calling out his name. No response.

Somehow, an abnormal atmosphere seemed to exist in the cottage and my pressing concern was for his health and state of mind. The Kennedy I grew up with, respected and learned to trust, seemed like a stranger to me. I went around the sofa on which he was seated until I was in front of him. For all I knew, I could well be a transparent window through which he could see distant lands and distant objects, without me actually being an obstacle to his vision. He was in a trance and it seemed my words, as I tried to attract his attention, could not reach him in the distant land he found himself in.

I wanted to dash out and look for his brother David; maybe he had experienced this spectacle before and might know how to handle the situation. But then, how would I feel if I returned only to find him unconscious or even dead? What was going to happen when he broke the trance and returned to the world of the living? Fear and fascination helped me make up my mind – to stay put and see this spectacle through.

Finally a grin crossed his face, signalling ‘good bye’ to the invisible spirits that had kept him company in the journey back to the world of the living. The original purpose of my being there was lost and forgotten in this unfolding drama.

Just when I thought the worst was over, he shifted his gaze and stared directly into my eyes. It was as if for the first time he became aware of my presence. His eyes burned through me, sending a cold shiver down my spine. When he started talking I could not understand what he was saying for his voice had an unnatural slur to it, as if it was someone speaking from within and through him. After uttering some incoherent words for about three minutes, his voice became clearer and targeted. I was the target.

“Dragon, I want you to listen carefully to what I have to say.” At the mention of my name I was surprised and became very alert. He was deliberately slow in his speech. “I want you to take me out of this place tonight without fail,” he stated firmly. His eyes held me in a hypnotic trance and never let go.

“If you think this is a dream, ask yourself why you came here. Did you think it was the dream you had, that made you come?” I was dumbfounded by what he was saying. How did he know that I had come to tell him about my dream? I became more attentive and eager to know what he was going to say next.

“It’s me who called you here. I want you to take me out of this place right away,” he continued. “Take me far, far away, otherwise I shall not see tomorrow and you shall never see me again.” His gaze remained fixed on me, appealing, beseeching and demanding. The words seemed not to come from Kennedy, but from some spirit that possessed his body and soul.

“And who are you?” I ventured to ask.

“Time is a luxury that you do not have on your side. Just do as I have asked and you will not live to regret it,” he gave a short ominous laugh that increased the fear and anxiety I had felt for some time. For the first time his gaze shifted away from me, releasing me from its hold. The voice had seemed familiar, but I could not pin a face to it.

I was absolutely certain that the voice coming through Kennedy’s mouth was not his. How then could I respond to a being I did not know? Who was I expected to take far away, since it was not Kennedy who had spoken? Even if it had been Kennedy, would it make any sense that I send my subordinate far away because he ordered me, his boss, to do so?

I was embroiled in these thoughts when he turned his face towards me; tears were rolling down his cheeks and his body began to shiver.

“Kennedy,” I demanded, “why on earth are you crying?” My words had the effect of a whip lashing at him. From the quiet sobs, he began to wail loudly. His words were distinctly clear. “Oh please take me away, they are coming to get me,” he kept on repeating.

I looked around in all directions, but could see no one and nothing that could cause a threat to him. He continued to wail and rant at the same time. Suddenly, he jumped up and made a dash for the door. I was overcome by fear and could not immediately follow him. After a few seconds I overcame the fear and ran after him.

Once outside the cottage I caught a glimpse of David, looking perplexed as his brother frantically sped away. I made a desperate bid to catch up with him, but by now he had opened a considerable distance between us and was running faster than I did. I tried to increase my pace, but to no avail. The chase had been going on for approximately two minutes when, from the direction of Rhodesia, I saw four large birds flying towards us. As they reached Kennedy’s position, one of them swooped down and with its huge powerful claws lifted him off the ground. With him dangling beneath its massive feathered body, it ascended quickly until the bird and its prey began to look like a tiny dot in the sky. Just when I thought I was going to lose sight of the two completely, the bird released its prey and continued with its flight out of my vision. My eyes were now riveted on its prey which, from the tiny dot in the sky, began to grow bigger and to take human form as it hurtled towards the hard ground beneath.

I watched helplessly the rapid descent of the bird’s prey, my childhood friend, and just when I thought his hapless body would hit the ground and disintegrate, I closed my eyes in order not to see my moment of failure to serve my faithful friend at his hour of greatest need.

But the sound of the inevitable impact never came, instead a shrill voice was begging, “Comrade Dragon please save me,” forcing me to open my eyes. The ground beneath seemed to have opened up and the plummeting body hurtled down into its cavernous belly. As I watched in total helplessness, the voice and fast disappearing form was not that of Kennedy, but of Kelvin my batman. I gave a sharp cry of pain and disbelief. My eyes searched for David in the vain hope that we would share the pain and irreparable loss that had visited us. But where once there stood David, I only saw Donaldson my other batman. In panic and sadness I wanted to get far away from the cottage that had brought me these misfortunes, but there was no cottage. I began to weep loudly and uncontrollably.

That’s when I was woken up by my two batmen who were shaking me in near panic.

“Comrade Dragon, Comrade Dragon, please wake up. Are you feeling alright?” cried out Kelvin.

(There had been no journey to Rhodesia, no friends called Kennedy and David, no machine-building plant where I worked in Mozambique – it had all been a dream – a telling dream.)

* ‘The dream’ is revealed at the end of this chapter as an epilogue.

* ‘Backward advance’ because I was moving towards a location from which I had just come.

* Gondola is a growth centre situated about 22 kilometres from Chimoio town and about three kilometres from Chindunduma, a ZANLA school for youths.

* Sekuru Kaguvi (Uncle Kaguvi) was the spirit medium who, together with Mbuya (grandmother) Nehanda, inspired the First War of Liberation (Chimurenga Chekutanga, 1896–97). He surrendered in October 1897 and was executed in March 1898.